Drivers dodge climate protesters
EXTINCTION Rebellion protesters in Swansea stopped traffic across the city after staging a sitdown protest on busy roads.
The 30-minute protest, took place on Swansea’s High Street, Gower Road in Upper Killay and Sketty Road in Uplands on Saturday morning.
Video footage from Upper Killay shows a protester peacefully sitting in the road wearing a sign that read: “I’m terrified that there is nothing to live for because of the climate crisis.”
The protest led to queues of traffic forcing cars to drive around the protester.
In the video, one business owner can be heard asking the man to move.
“I’ve got a business to run and you’re blocking the road,” he said, before walking away.
Over in High Street, Tez B was also protesting about “government inaction” on the climate emergency, two years on from Parliament’s declaration of an environment and climate emergency.
A local man even came to support her, standing behind her on the road, telling people they should be grateful that someone was doing this to bring the importance of the situation to people’s attention.
Tez B, from Swansea said: “I was naive enough to think that the reason we’re not solving climate change is that we don’t have the solutions, but we do. We’re just not listening to the experts. It seems to me that the only meaningful action I can take is to try and get people to listen to the experts that already know the answers. That’s why I’m doing this protest today.”
Around the country, more than 200 people took part in the protest at 11am including in Nottingham, Birmingham, Oxford, Bradford, and Newcastle.
Kathy Oakwood, from Extinction Rebellion, said: “Two years ago today the UK Parliament declared an environment and climate emergency.
“And yet in February this year chief executive of the Environment Agency Sir James Bevan said that the UK is hitting worst case environmental scenarios that if left unchecked would collapse ecosystems, slash crop yields, take out the infrastructure that our civilisation depends on, and destroy the basis of the modern economy and modern society.
“The Committee on Climate Change and the
National Audit Office who are tasked with monitoring the Government are warning the public that their climate plans are failing to materialise. Our leaders are still not taking this seriously. It’s time for ordinary people to step up and demand action.”
Despite activists insisting their protest was justified, obstructing a road is still classed as a criminal offence under the Highways Act 1980.