CLIMATE change warnings were on display over two major Berkshire roads last week as environmental campaigners get ready for mass action across the country.
Extinction Rebellion demonstrators from Reading, Bracknell and Wokingham took to walkways above M4 and the A329(M) on Friday, August 28 with banners that included messages such as ‘no future in fossil fuels’ and ‘we want to live’.
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This came as part of a series of UK-wide coordinated campaigns by the environmental campaigners, leading up to demonstrations in major cities which will call on the government to speed up its response to climate change.
Extinction Rebellion Bracknell spokesperson Kate Cameron-Daum said: “Many people are angry that the government’s chaotic response to the Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in tens of thousands of excess deaths.
“But they forget that air pollution, mostly caused by vehicles running on fossil fuels, causes around 40,000 premature deaths annually.
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“That’s equivalent to a pandemic every year. Instead of subsidising the fossil fuel industry, MPs should be demanding a rapid transition to renewable energy and electric vehicles.”
Extinction Rebellion is backing The Climate and Emergency Act 2020, known as the CEE Bill, which will place legal obligations on the government to develop a strategy to meet climate targets outlined in the United Nations’ Paris Agreement.
According to the independent Committee on Climate Change group, the government is “lagging behind what is needed to meet legally-binding emissions targets.”
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Extinction Rebellion Reading spokesperson Gillian Fletcher added: “The UK government is failing in its primary duty to protect the lives of its citizens.
“It has broken the social contract.
“It is, therefore, the right, and indeed the moral duty, of all citizens to protest against the government’s dereliction of duty.”
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