It’s the latest action from the climate activist group
Just Stop Oil protestors managed to bring play to a halt by making their way onto one of the courts at Wimbledon on Wednesday.
Two protestors got on to court 18 at the All England Club, disrupting the match between Sho Shimabukuro and Grigor Dimitrov.
They then threw “environmentally friendly orange confetti glitter and jigsaw pieces” onto the court before being removed by security.
Explaining the motive behind their actions in a post on Twitter, the group said: “Today’s action comes as the @metoffice confirmed on Monday that this June has been the hottest on record, with the average monthly temperature of 15.8°C exceeding the previous record set in 1976 by 0.9°C.
“The @Wimbledon Championships are currently under fire after signing a sponsorship deal with @Barclays, who have given £30 billion to oil and gas companies, including @exxonmobil, @Shell and @TotalEnergies, in the last two years.”
During June, temperature records were broken in 72 of the 97 areas in the UK from which temperature data is collected.
Speaking about the record breaking temperatures, Paul Davies, Met Office chief meteorologist and climate extremes principal fellow, told BBC News: “An increase of 0.9C may not seem a huge amount, but it’s really significant because it has taken the average daytime and the night time temperature for the whole of the UK.”
And as before Wimbledon got underway this week, a number of high-profile celebrities called on the championships to end their relationship with Barclays.
Actress Emma Thompson, film director Richard Curtis, businesswoman Deborah Meaden and Green Party MP Caroline Lucas were among those to sign a letter accusing Barclays of “profiting from climate chaos”.
The letter was from from Make My Money Matter, a group co-founded by Curtis that seeks to put “people and planet on a par with profit”.
The All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) announced Barclays as an official banking partner of the Championships in November last year.
Addressed to the chief executive of the AELTC Sally Bolton, the letter reads: “Barclays is Europe’s largest fossil fuel funder, providing over $190 billion to the industry since the Paris Climate Agreement was struck in 2016.
“Put simply, Barclays is financing and profiting from climate chaos, and accepting a sponsorship deal from them is an endorsement of these actions.”
It’s the latest example of the climate activists disrupting a major sporting event,, Last month, protestors brought a halt to the second Ashes test at Lord’s by storming the field, and earlier this year activists managed to sit on one of the tables at the Snooker World Championships in Sheffield.
Related links:
Lord’s steward who tackled Just Stop Oil protester turns incident into ‘best LinkedIn post ever’
Man pours milk over the heads of Just Stop Oil protesters
Just Stop Oil ‘slow walk’ protests take up over 13,000 Met Police shifts and cost taxpayer £4.5m
