AT LEAST ten activists from Pembrokeshire are travelling to London as part of this April’s Extinction Rebellion, to demand the UK Government takes climate change seriously. They are part of a group of almost 100 activists who are travelling from all over Wales to the daily protests in London, from Saturday 9th April at 10am in Hyde Park. The group say they will be “impossible to ignore.”
The large-scale Extinction Rebellion action will target the fossil fuel economy and demand the government ends new investments and subsidies.
Nick Swanell a film maker from South Pembrokeshire told this newspaper: “As our planet passes multiple tipping points we are seeing denial and delay. We must end fossil fuels, and switch to renewables, especially as we have seen how dependent we are on inhumane regimes like Russia, when we could be creating our own wind and solar energy here in the UK.”
A damning report by the United Nations last month found that the world has a “brief and rapidly” closing window to adapt to climate change. The latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change describes how rising temperatures and extreme weather are a threat to human wellbeing and the planet, and calls for urgent, transformative action to secure our future.
The nonviolent action will demand the government ends new fossil fuel investment and licences, and to put the tax-payers money, which currently subsidises fossil fuels, into wind, tidal and solar subsidies instead.
Lynda Duffill a Charity worker from the County told The Herald: “Our government is choosing to allow this cost-of-living crisis to happen to the British people, just like they are choosing to stay on fossil fuels. Citizens’ Advice predicts that one in four people in this country won’t be able to afford their energy bills by October. I am taking time off work because I believe the UK government needs to feel the pressure of Direct Action and that a massive transition to renewable energies needs to happen NOW with no more delays.”
Desperate times are calling ordinary people to the streets and to join Extinction Rebellion actions this Spring.
Sian Vaughan a retired Head Teacher from North Pembrokeshire said: “Climate change is threatening everything we love. To keep my family, my community, the beautiful natural world around me safe, I need to help push the government to act, because the change needed goes beyond what we can achieve through individual choices, I think XR’s Rebellion in London is my best chance of making a difference. I have to at least try or I won’t be able to live with myself.”
