Just hours after she was fined for disobeying law enforcement at a June protest, police forcefully removed youth climate activist Greta Thunberg from another environmental protest.
Thunberg, 20, appeared in court on Monday on one charge of disobeying police during a protest on June 19, in which she and other members of climate activism movement Reclaim the Future blocked the road to an oil facility in the Swedish city Malmö.
While Thunberg did not deny her involvement, she did not admit guilt, instead arguing that the protests are a form of self defense in the face of impending climate disasters.
“We are in an emergency; due to that my acting was legitimate,” she said.
Thunberg was fined 2,500 kronor, approximately $240, telling journalists she was “disappointed at the system.”
“It is absurd that those who act in line with science should pay the price for it,” Thunberg told reporters after the hearing. “Right now, we don’t have any laws that holds the carbon in the ground. We don’t have any laws that long-term protect us against the self-destructing greed that we have let in full control over the world."
Thunberg's protests come amidst an unprecedented heat wave sweeping the globe. Within the next five years, global temperatures are predicted to rise beyond an increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), according to a report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which said in May that there is now a 66 percent chance of reaching the average by 2027.
The Paris Climate Accords of 2015 set to limit greenhouse gas emissions to prevent global temperatures from rising above 1.5C. While the goal is still attainable, data in the WMO report and from recent increasing temperatures reflect a failure among world leaders to limit fossil fuel usage, which Thunberg hasn't shied away from criticizing.
Shortly after receiving the fine, Thunberg marched right back into the fray of another climate protest, seen sitting defiantly with other climate protesters blocking tankers en route to the city’s harbor. She was soon after forcefully removed by police.
Reclaim the Future hailed Thunberg’s actions in an Instagram post, promising that despite the fines and police action, “the resistance continues.”
As Thunberg noted after her hearing: "We know that we cannot save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed."
