Vancouver police say they arrested one person after Climate activists occupied an intersection in Mount Pleasant.
Police say about 75 people filled the intersection of Main Street and East Broadway around 2:30 p.m., where they held banners and blocked traffic for “several hours.”
Police eventually ordered the group to disperse, which they did with the exception of a 26-year-old woman who was arrested for mischief.
Activist group Extinction Rebellion Vancouver said the protest was meant to highlight government inaction on climate change.
“The government has failed to act on the climate crisis and provide a safe & livable future for future generations, and so it is a moral imperative we act, and engage in non violent civil disobedience,” Brent Eichler, Extinction Rebellion member and president of Unifor Local 950 said in a media release.
The group says Saturday’s protest is part of a lead-up to a “Canada-wide rebellion” starting in October.
On Friday, an unrelated youth-led group of climate activists rallied at Jack Poole Plaza before marching through downtown.
In August, the United Nations panel on climate change warned that human-caused climate change was dangerously close to running out of control.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Earth is already facing extreme weather events due to greenhouse gas emissions, and the planet will exceed key warming milestones of 1.5 degrees Celcius and 2 degrees Celcius within the coming century, with potentially irreversible results.
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