Two Just Stop Oil activists have been arrested after they defaced Charles Darwin’s grave with orange chalk in Westminster Abbey.
Police led the two protesters away after they used spray chalk to write ‘1.5 Is Dead’ at around 10am on Monday morning.
The group said the graffiti was reference to the news that the world has experienced the first full year in which global temperatures have exceeded the key target of 1.5C above pre-industrial times.
One of the women Di Bligh, 77, a former CEO of Reading Council, told reporters: “We’ve done this because there’s no hope for the world, really.
“We’ve done it on Darwin’s grave specifically because he would be turning in that grave because of the sixth mass extinction taking place now.”
A Metropolitan Police spokesperson said they were arrested “on suspicion of causing criminal damage with what is believed to be powdered paint at Westminster Abbey”.
The other protester, Alyson Lee, 66, a retired teaching assistant from Derby told PA: “We are trying to get the Government to act on climate change. They are not doing enough.”
She added: “I believe he would approve because he was a good scientist and he would be following the science, and he would be as upset as us with the Government for ignoring the science.”
The EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) confirmed on Friday that last year was the warmest on record globally and the first calendar year that the average temperature exceeded 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
Analysis from the Met Office, University of East Anglia and the National Centre for Atmospheric Science also found 2024 was the hottest on record, and “likely” the first year exceeding 1.5C.
According to Just Stop Oil, Ms Lee could be heard saying:“Ten years on from the Paris Agreement, we have already exceeded the so-called safe temperature rise of 1.5 degrees, and are heading for over 3 degrees of warming.
“This rapidly accelerating crisis means huge parts of the world will become unable to support life, resulting in millions of refugees, social collapse and extinction for countless species.”
She also called for “mass civil disobedience” and urging people to “join us on the streets and help us reclaim parliament this April”, according to the group.
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