Extinction Rebellion: From the UK to Ghana and the US, Climate Activists Take Civil Disobedience World-Wide
More than 100 people were arrested during a week of action across the UK as protesters demanded the government treat the threats posed by climate change as a crisis and take drastic steps to cut emissions to net zero by 2025.
Thousands of people joined a mass protest that blocked roads and bridges in central London, with some gluing themselves to government buildings to draw attention to what they see as climate breakdown.
This was the birth of Extinction Rebellion, a movement that calls for mass economic disruption using non-violent direct action and civil disobedience to halt the destruction of the planet and its wildlife and prevent catastrophic climate change.
Around the world, environmental campaign groups and activists watched the action unfold. In London, there is a growing hope that this could be the start to a new form of international mobilisation for climate action.
‘A game changer’
From the US to Ghana and New Zealand to Western Europe, campaigners have shown enthusiastic support for Extinction Rebellion’s declaration of climate emergency.
Jamie Henn, co-founder of the campaign group 350, said watching the launch of Extinction Rebellion in London from the UShad been “incredibly exciting” and embodied “a growing sense of anger and desire for radical solutions”.
Henn said he was confident Extinction Rebellion would inspire similar non-violent direct climate actions in the US over the coming months, but whether the movement was one that could endure the test of time was yet to be seen.
Margaret Klein Salamon, founder of the US grassroot group Climate Mobilization, said she believed Extinction Rebellion is “a game changer” for the climate movement.
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