Protests on in London, Paris, Rome

Film star Emma Thompson joined climate change activists in central London on Friday to read poetry praising Earth’s bounties, part of a series of protests which have caused transport snarl-ups in the British capital.
Organisers Extinction Rebellion have called for non-violent civil disobedience to force the British government to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2025 and stop what they call a global climate crisis.
The protests did not cause travel disruption on Friday during one of Britain’s main holiday weekends, but police said they have arrested more than 570 people so far this week.
Extinction Rebellion has blocked several locations in central London this week after staging a semi-nude protest in parliament earlier this month.
‘Our planet is in serious trouble,’ Thompson told reporters.
‘We are here in this island of sanity and it makes me so happy to be able to join you all and to add my voice to the young people here who have inspired a whole new movement,’ said Thompson, one of Britain’s most acclaimed actresses who has won two Academy awards.
She was one of several actors who read poems celebrating the beauty of nature from a pink boat lodged by the protesters at Oxford Circus in central London.
The protesters formed a human chain around the boat, which officials say has been locked to the ground, making it extremely difficult for police to remove.
Meanwhile, climate activists blocked thousands of employees from entering the headquarters of French bank Societe Generale, state-run utility EDF and oil giant Total on Friday, environmental group Greenpeace said.
Greenpeace said it was protesting against company links to the oil and gas industry, which it calls a driving force in global warming. Activists also obstructed the entrance to the environment ministry near La Defence business district.
Protesters plastered giant posters of president Emmanuel Macron carrying the slogan ‘Macron, President of Polluters’ and a banner reading ‘Scene of Climate Crime’ on the glass facade of Societe Generale, Reuters TV images showed.
Police pepper-sprayed one group blocking the bank’s main entrance in a sit-down protest.
Some demonstrators taped themselves together while others cuffed themselves with plastic ties to metal poles to make it harder for police to dislodge them.
Employees in business suits milled around outside their offices. ‘I just want to get inside and on with my work,’ one frustrated bank employee said.
Greenpeace and action group Les Amis de la Terre (Friends of the Earth) have previously criticised Societe Generale for its role in financing oil and gas projects, in particular the Rio Grande LNG gas project in the United States.
A Societe Generale spokesman declined to comment.
Meanwhile, Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg wants to fix climate change and hopes for world peace, but acknowledges that she might be being ‘very naive’.
Thunberg, 16, has brought her campaign against rising global temperatures to Rome this week, meeting Pope Francis, addressing Italian parliamentarians and joining a student protest on Friday in a city-centre square.
‘I think what I want for the future is just that we fix everything and that we fix the climate and the ecological crisis so that everyone lives in peace, I guess, very naive,’ she told Reuters, shrugging her shoulders.
Thunberg shot to prominence last August with weekly sit-ins on the cobblestones in front of Stockholm’s Parliament House with her ‘school strike for climate’ sign.
Thousands of students around the world have since copied her and youth organisations have launched school strikes involving students in more than 40 countries.
Her single-minded determination have won her fans of all ages and she has also earned respect for living by her ideals.
‘I do many small things just to change my habits, like I have become vegan, I have stopped flying, I have stopped shopping and small things like that,’ she said, patiently straining to hear questions over the noise of the protest.
She rejected suggestions that she had stolen the limelight away from her cause, saying she did not like being a celebrity.
‘I mean I don’t enjoy attention, but I enjoy making a difference,’ she said, adding that she wanted to make sure that climate crisis was always the main focus of any trip.
Her blunt criticism of politicians has raised some eyebrows, but she warned that it was up to the current crop of leaders to find solutions because time was running out.
‘When I am grown up, when I am old enough to become a politician, I mean it will be too late to act because we need to act now,’ she said. ‘We can’t wait for people like me to grow up and become the ones in charge.’

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net