London: Environmental activists glued themselves to the London Stock Exchange and climbed onto the roof of a train at Canary Wharf on the final day of protests aimed at forcing Britain to take action to avert what they cast as a global climate cataclysm.
The Extinction Rebellion group has caused mass disruption in recent weeks across London, blocking Marble Arch, Oxford Circus and Waterloo Bridge, smashing a door at the Shell building and shocking lawmakers with a semi-nude protest in parliament.
At London Stock Exchange's headquarters on Thursday, six protesters dressed in black suits and red ties were blocking the revolving doors of the building.
At the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) station in Canary Wharf, five protesters from the group climbed aboard a train and unfurled a banner which read: "Business as usual = Death". One glued herself to a train.
"Extinction Rebellion to focus on the financial industry today," the group said in a statement. The "aim is to demand the finance industry tells the truth about the climate industry and the devastating impact the industry has on our planet."
Police said 1088 arrests have been made since the main protests began last Monday.
The group advocates non-violent civil disobedience to force governments to reduce carbon emissions and avert what it says is a global climate crisis that will bring starvation, floods, wildfires and social collapse.
The group is demanding the government declare a climate and ecological emergency, reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025 and create a citizen's assembly of members of the public to lead on decisions to address climate change.
Teenage activist reprimands British MPs
Swedish teenage activist, Greta Thunberg has joined the London protest and addresses British MPs calling for change. Britain's opposition leaders met Swedish climate change activist Greta Thunberg on Tuesday to discuss what the teenager calls an "existential crisis" for humanity.
There is broad political consensus in Britain that action is urgently needed to tackle climate change, but 16-year-old Thunberg said in her speech that the country's industrial policies failed to answer the urgent need to cut the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming.
"The UK's active, current support of new exploitation of fossil fuels; for example, the UK shale gas fracking industry, the expansion of its North Sea oil and gas fields, the expansion of airports as well as the planning permission for a brand new coal mine; is beyond absurd," she said.
"This ongoing irresponsible behaviour will no doubt be remembered in history as one of the greatest failures of humankind," she said.
After months of Brexit tumult, climate change has leapt back up Britain's political agenda due to protests that closed some of London's traffic arteries. Thunberg, who rose to global prominence by staging a school strike to protest about the climate, has praised the "Extinction Rebellion" sits-ins in London.