CLIMATE campaigners have climbed the Scottish Parliament and aim to stay there until the end of First Minister’s Questions this afternoon.
Three activists climbed onto the roof of the building and dropped a banner reading “Choose Oil or Choose Life: Act Now” over the main entrance.
The Extinction Rebellion campaigners say they’re taking direct action to put pressure on the Scottish Government, and they have also put up adverts featuring the slogan in Dundee, Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Stirling overnight.
@ScotlandXr climb Holyrood, drop banner ‘Choose Oil or Choose Life’. Aiming to remain there until #FMQs ends at 2pm
— Extinction Rebellion Scotland 🌍 (@ScotlandXr) October 8, 2020
The govt is co-opted by the fossil fuel industry and is leading us towards catastrophe, but there is still a choice. #MakeTheConnectionshttps://t.co/VkihzFXNq1 pic.twitter.com/Teu41p7ibj
Myke Hall, who climbed the Holyrood building, said: “If the Scottish Government really wants to be world leaders on the climate emergency they need to stop pretending that big fossil fuel companies are part of the solution.
"These corporations have known about ecological breakdown for decades and have only drilled deeper.”
Meg Peyton Jones, who also climbed onto the Parliament’s roof, added: “Scotland is financially and politically tied to a destructive and dying industry: this does not have to be the case, and we call on the Government for a just transition away from oil, led by the workers rather than corporations.”
Throughout October Extinction Rebellion will be highlighting the links between fossil fuel companies, the finance sector and governments.
The group has “three weeks of civil disobedience” planned across Scotland’s biggest cities. They stressed their actions have been “designed with Covid-19 safety in mind”.
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