Environmental protesters will paralyse London's roads today by creating human barricades at five landmarks.
Organisers of the Extinction Rebellion group claim up to 30,000 eco-protesters are expected to block major routes from 9am. Scotland Yard warned drivers to expect road closures and widespread disruption in the capital.
The movement, which is demanding the Government takes urgent action on climate change and wildlife declines, has been backed by actress Dame Emma Thompson and former archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams.
Climate protest group Extinction Rebellion set up camp in London's Hyde Park yesterday before today's plans for disruption
The campaigners, who include the granddaughter of a baronet, are demanding the introduction of a legally binding policy to reduce carbon emission to net zero by 2025.
They say they will continue to block key roads in London for weeks and 'escalate civil disobedience' if their demands are not met.
Humans have declared war on nature and put progress before the planet, the former archbishop of Canterbury said on the eve of environmental protests aimed at bringing London to a standstill.
Dr Rowan Williams said the world is in a crisis which could be called 'being at war with ourselves'.
He spoke at a meditation event outside St Paul's Cathedral in the capital attended by activists preparing to take part in mass demonstrations organised by the Extinction Rebellion group.
Sitting on the ground amid protesters who held flags and banners, he said: 'We have declared war on our nature when we declare war on the natural world.
'We are at war with ourselves when we are at war with our neighbour, whether that neighbour is human or non-human.
'We are here tonight to declare that we do not wish to be at war. We wish to make peace with ourselves by making peace with our neighbour earth and with our God.'
Praying at the all-faith gathering, he added: 'We confess that we have polluted our own atmosphere, causing global warming and climate change that have increased poverty in many parts of our planet.
'We have contributed to crises and been more concerned with getting gold than keeping our planet green. We have loved progress more than the planet. We are sorry.'
Extinction Rebellion, which describes itself as a non-violent direct action and civil disobedience group, said the protests at major central London locations including Parliament Square and Oxford Circus from Monday 'will be bringing London to a standstill for up to two weeks'.
The first stage of their global 'Rebellion Week' will see human barricades at Marble Arch, Oxford Circus, Waterloo Bridge, Parliament Square and Piccadilly Circus.
Their goal is to shut down vital roads and transport links, causing misery for commuters and keeping over-stretched police officers busy for hours.
The so-called festival of action will see food stalls set up and talks given in the middle of the road throughout the day. Some protesters even plan to super-glue their hands to objects in the road and each other.
One of those expected on the streets is Tamsin Omond, the granddaughter of Dorset baronet Sir Thomas Lees. The 35-year-old went to Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge.
The most prominent figure in Extinction Rebellion is Left-wing academic Roger Hallam, whose stated ambition for the group is to 'bring down all the regimes in the world and replace them', starting with Britain.
Last November, Extinction Rebellion blocked bridges across London to bring chaos to the capital.
In February, they took part in a nationwide school strike and on April 1, during one of the Brexit debates, a group of their protesters stripped off in the House of Commons.
Speaking at a meditation on the eve of the protests Dr Williams said humans had declared war on nature.
He said: 'We are here tonight to declare that we do not wish to be at war. We wish to make peace with ourselves by making peace with our neighbour Earth and with our God.'
Thompson has previously said of the demonstrations: 'It is time to stand up and save our home.'
The Met Police said it was aware of the protests.
Officers said their operational response to camping 'would be dependent on what if any other issues might be ongoing at the time'.
On April 1, during one of the Brexit debates, a group of Extinction Rebellion protesters stripped off in the House of Commons
Extinction Rebellion protesters sit after pouring fake blood onto the ground in London outside Downing Street on March 9
Scotland Yard said they have 'appropriate policing plans' in place for the demonstrations and that officers will be used from across the force 'to support the public order operation during the coming weeks'.
Today will see people in at least 80 cities in more than 33 countries hold similar climate demonstrations.
The first protest of the day was held at Schuman Square in Brussels this morning as protesters formed a human 'XR' logo - the same as that of Extinction Rebellion.
The Extinction Rebellion 'Rebellion Week' begins at Schuman Square in Brussels today as protesters form a human 'XR' logo
Police advised people travelling around London in the coming days to allow extra time for their journey in the event of road closures and general disruption.
A spokesman for the organisers said: 'The International Rebellion begins and Extinction Rebellion will be bringing London to a standstill for up to two weeks.
'They will be blocking five of the city's busiest and most iconic locations in a non-violent, peaceful act of rebellion where they invite people to join them for several days of creative, artist-led resistance.'
Demonstrators arrived at London's Hyde Park yesterday, some having journeyed to the city on foot in recent weeks from various parts of the UK for what is described as an 'International Rebellion'.
While organisers encouraged people to set up camp in Hyde Park overnight into this morning, they were warned they could be breaking the law by doing so is an offence under Royal Parks legislation.
A spokesman for The Royal Parks said Extinction Rebellion had not asked for permission to begin the protest in the park and that camping is not allowed.
Claire Perry said her encounter with this (until now) obscure group had been 'good and productive'
Getting to see a government minister isn't easy. I'd challenge any reader to see how long it takes to persuade the civil servants manning the bureaucratic barricades to let you bend a minister's ear about whatever concerns you.
Yet somehow they found a space in the diary for a group called Extinction Rebellion (XR) to lobby the Minister of State for Energy, Claire Perry.
Ms Perry told the Mail on Sunday that her encounter with this (until now) obscure group had been 'good and productive'.
Really? Extinction Rebellion is this week launching mass protests designed to shut down or obstruct transport links, causing (more) misery to commuters and business. If that's the result of 'productive' talks, I wonder what would happen if they had gone badly.
But making Britain hell for business (and anyone who drives a car) is what Extinction Rebellion stands for. As the Energy Minister must know, its mission is to 'save the planet' by eliminating Britain's CO2 emissions entirely by 2025.
Brutish
Or in other words, to reduce us to a state of mere subsistence, last seen in the pre-industrial age when life was (for the great majority) nasty, brutish and short.
As if to emphasise the primitiveness to which they wish us to return, this is the group which on April Fool's Day performed a naked protest in the public gallery of the House of Commons.
Actually, this is the only way people with such views could take part (so to speak) in parliamentary debate. Because any party which tried to get MPs elected on a policy of mass immiseration would not win a single seat. There might be some thousands of middle-class students and drop-outs sufficiently aesthetically offended by mass consumerism to vote for such a manifesto, but that would be it.
This is the group which on April Fool's Day performed a naked protest in the public gallery of the House of Commons
Unsurprisingly, the leaders of this movement tend to come from well-to-do homes, which have never experienced scarcity or privation.
The figures behind the demonstrations planned for this week include Tamsin Omond, granddaughter of the Dorset baronet Sir Thomas Lees
The figures behind the demonstrations planned for this week include Tamsin Omond, granddaughter of the Dorset baronet Sir Thomas Lees; Stuart Basden (who said his week in prison after an earlier action was 'a bit like boarding school'); and George Barda, son of the distinguished stage and music photographer Clive Barda OBE FRSA and a 43-year-old postgraduate student at King's College London.
I am distantly related to one of the inspirations for this movement, the environmentalist author and journalist George Monbiot (we are both scions of the family which created the J Lyons catering and food manufacturing empire). Monbiot is anything but a hypocrite. He leads the life he preaches to others: he doesn't own a car, never flies and, so far as I know, survives on a purely plant-based diet.
Last week, Monbiot appeared on Frankie Boyle's television show, New World Order, and was cheered by the youthful audience when he demanded action to end economic growth, adding that this meant 'we've got to go straight to the heart of capitalism and overthrow it'.
Monbiot has been consistent in this: in 2007 he wrote an article for the Guardian welcoming the prospect of a recession, even though, as he acknowledged, 'it would cause some people to lose their jobs and homes'. (He got his wish: it turned out not to be popular).
But if it's the planet you want to save, and you believe its very existence is threatened by excessive emissions of CO2, then what happens in this country is almost beside the point. The UK contributes little more than one per cent of global CO2 emissions. Even if the inhabitants of these islands were reduced by an environmentalist version of the Cambodian dictator Pol Pot to a state of pre-industrial and self-sufficient subsistence farming — no wicked imports of food via boat or plane — it would have a minuscule effect on the planet's future.
In fact, the UK — chiefly through the steady closure of the domestic coal industry — has been in the vanguard of reducing CO2 emissions: in 2018, our emissions were at their lowest levels in 120 years.
Activists from Extinction Rebellion block off a road at Parliament Square, London, during a protest in October last year
The group yesterday set up camp in London's Hyde park ahead of plans to cause widespread disruption across London later
It's not British politicians that groups such as Extinction Rebellion should be haranguing and demonstrating against, but those in the People's Republic of China. That is the nation responsible for 60 per cent of the growth in global CO2 emissions over the past decade.
And China is currently building almost 260 gigawatts of new coal-fired power generating capacity — in itself almost the size of the entire U.S. coal-fired capacity.
The trouble is the Chinese state would treat rather robustly any Extinction Rebellion activists who attempted to demonstrate on its busiest streets, or to mount a naked protest in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. I don't recommend they try that.
Plunder
Nor should we be so critical of the Chinese. They, as we in the West did before them, are using cheap energy wrenched from the Earth's resources to escape from lives of almost unimaginable poverty. And it was economic growth which ultimately created the circumstances in which peace rather than conflict became the normal state of human affairs: nations could prosper and enrich themselves through
