London
CNN
—
Environmental activists in the United Kingdom on Monday painted Charles Darwin’s tomb in Westminster Abbey with the words “1.5 is dead”, referring to the critical climate threshold that the world will temporarily exceed in 2024.
The two Just Stop Oil activists entered London’s Westminster Abbey, where Darwin is buried alongside some of Britain’s most famous figures, around 10 a.m. local time, according to London’s Metropolitan Police and a group press release.
There, activists said: “We have exceeded the 1.5 degree threshold that was supposed to keep us safe. Millions of people are displaced, California is on fire, and we have lost three-quarters of all wildlife since the 1970s,” according to the Just Stop Oil release.
Scientists confirmed last week that 2024 was the hottest year on record and the first calendar year to meet a crucial climate target – the pledge to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees above average temperatures before until humans start burning large amounts of fossil fuels.
Last year it was 1.6 degrees Celsius warmer, according to new data released Friday by the European climate monitoring agency Copernicus.
Scientists are more concerned about exceeding 1.5 degrees over several decades rather than several years, because above this level, humans and ecosystems have difficulty adapting. But they say the 2024 record is another alarming sign of where the planet is heading.
The demonstrators also spoke of the biodiversity crisis.
“Darwin would be rolling over in his grave to know that we are in the middle of a sixth mass extinction,” said the campaigners, who are demanding that the British government work to phase out the extraction and burning of fossil fuels from by 2030.
Some scientists say we have entered a sixth mass extinction, with large numbers of species disappearing in a man-made crisis that has destroyed habitats and triggered a climate crisis.
Photos released by Just Stop Oil showed two protesters – a 66-year-old man and a 77-year-old – sitting cross-legged on the ground near Darwin’s grave, which Just Stop Oil said it painted with spray chalk , a kind of washable and non-toxic material.
The Met Police told CNN that two women were arrested on suspicion of causing criminal damage with what is believed to be powder paint at Westminster Abbey.
Just Stop Oil has staged several protests in response to the climate crisis in recent years, including throwing tomato soup on Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” and spraying orange powder paint on Van Gogh’s most famous prehistoric structure. Great Britain, Stonehenge.
There have been more than 3,000 arrests of Just Stop Oil activists since the group was founded in 2022, according to the group. Most of these arrests involved planning or carrying out direct actions, including slow walking – a tactic typically used to block traffic. Other activists, who defaced famous works of art and buildings, were arrested and charged with criminal damage and trespassing.
In September 2024, five Just Stop Oil activists received what is believed to be the longest sentence in UK history for non-violent protest.
CNN’s Kara Fox and Laura Paddison contributed reporting.