Protests demanding urgent action on the climate crisis have ramped up across the United States.
On Thursday, a pair of protesters smeared red and black paint on a glass case housing artwork at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., demanding that President Biden declare a climate emergency.
This follows demonstrations earlier this week outside the offices of banking giants Citibank in New York and Wells Fargo in San Francisco. A new study titled “Banking on Climate Chaos” finds the world’s largest private banks loaned $5.5 trillion to fossil fuel projects since the Paris Climate Agreement was adopted.
Earlier this week, climate activists interrupted a talk by John Podesta, who heads the White House Office of Clean Energy Innovation and Implementation. They were demanding the Biden administration reverse its approval of ConocoPhillips’s Willow project in northern Alaska and act swiftly to end the use of fossil fuels.
One protester shouted:” “We never needed fossil fuels. Y’all need to stop supporting it. You are going to be complicit to the destruction of Mother Earth and everyone’s future.”
The protest was organized by Climate Defiance, a new organization that has vowed to disrupt the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington, D.C., this weekend.
