ENVIRONMENTAL activist Greta Thunberg has been detained by police at a climate protest outside a hotel in central London.
Images on social media showed the 20-year-old Swedish campaigner being led away by officers and placed in the back of a marked van.
Fossil Free London, who organised the protest outside the InterContinental London hotel in Park Lane, posted on Twitter/X: “Breaking – Greta Thunberg has just been arrested.”
A number of arrests have been made at the protest.
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The latest statement from the Met Police said: "Officers have been on scene since this morning with a group of protesters in the road outside a hotel in Park Lane, W1.
"We have had continued discussions with the protesters and there have been interventions by officers to enable members of the public safe access in and out of the venue. Six people were arrested for obstruction of the highway.
"Officers on scene have kept this under constant review and at 12.32 imposed conditions on the group under section 14 of the Public Order Act given to prevent serious disruption to the community, hotel and guests.
"Officers asked the protesters to move from the road onto the pavement, which would enable them to continue with their demonstration without breaching the conditions.
"A number of protesters failed to do so and we have now made a further 14 arrests for section 14 of the Public Order Act and a further one for criminal damage.
"Officers remain on scene."
Protesters had attempted to block access to the InterContinental Hotel on Park lane by sitting and standing on the pavement and by the entrance.
Campaigners said fossil fuel companies are deliberately showing the global energy transition to renewables in order to make more profit.
Addressing journalists outside the hotel, Thunberg said: "The world is drowning in fossil fuels. Our hopes and dreams and lives are being washed away by a flood of greenwashing and lies.
"It has been clear for decades that the fossil fuel industries were well aware of the consequences of their business models, and yet, they have done nothing.
"The opposite - they have actively delayed, distracted and denied the causes of the climate crisis and spread doubts about their own engagement in it."
Dozens of protesters blocked Hamilton Place at both ends with banners and pink umbrellas with eyes painted on, shouting "oily money out" while others lit yellow and pink smoke flares.
A white fence surrounded the hotel entrance keeping protesters out while police smuggled conference attendees through the crowd of chanting activists and a samba band.
Thunberg continued: "We cannot let this continue. The elite of the oil and money conference, they have no intention of transition.
"Their plan is to continue this destructive search of profits. That is why we have to take direct action to stop this and to kick oil money out of politics.
"We have no other option but to put our bodies outside this conference and to physically disrupt. And we have to do that every time, we have to continue showing them that they are not going to get away with this."
During the demonstration, activists from Greenpeace abseiled down from the roof of the hotel to unfurl a banner reading “make big oil pay”, while a strong wind billowed the message and the protesters against the side of the building.
Maja Darlington, a campaigner at Greenpeace UK, said: “Oil bosses are toasting each other in a luxury hotel and plotting how to make even larger profits, while millions struggle to rebuild after a summer of extreme weather.
“Big oil is profiting from humanity’s loss and those who have done the least to cause climate change are being forced to pay the price.”
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