Just Stop Oil protesters are climbing signs on the M25 and causing disruption in response to extreme temperatures in the UK and what they describe as the government’s “inadequate preparation” for climate change.
Five protesters scaled gantries that support overhead motorway signs at three locations along the M25, prompting police to close sections of the road.
Protesters climbed over signs at junction 10 eastbound near Cobham, Surrey, and at the Poyle junction at Heathrow between junctions 14 and 15.
The environmental protest group said more members were on the way as part of the planned action between Wednesday and Friday.
“We’re risking our civil liberties to be up here,” one protester said in a statement posted on social media.
“We don’t want to be here, but we feel like this is what we have to do.
In a statement posted on the group’s Twitter page, the organization declared the M25 a “site of civil resistance against the UK government” and asked “no one to travel on this motorway from Wednesday to Friday this week” as “they will block the highway”.
A spokesman for Just Stop Oil said: “The bottom line is we’ve just seen 40C temperatures that have been predicted for decades, maybe it’s happening a bit faster but it’s just revealed how inadequate the government’s preparation for climate change is their whole policy, and basically we’re just saying that it’s now obvious that we can’t go on.”
The group is calling for the government to make a “meaningful statement” that it will commit to ending licensing and consents for fossil fuel exploration, development and production in the UK, which it says is the “necessary first step to securing a livable future”.
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