Climate activist Greta Thunberg has been arrested in the U.K. during a protest outside a gas and oil industry conference.
The Metropolitan Police force in London said Wednesday that the 20-year-old Swedish activist, who rose to international fame when she addressed a United Nations climate event in New York City, was among dozens of protesters charged amid a demonstration outside the luxury InterContinental Hotel during the Energy Intelligence Forum. She has been detained by police or removed from protests in Sweden, Norway and Germany, Reuters reported.
Thunberg and 25 others chanted "Oily money out" and sought to block access to the hotel on Tuesday, police said. They were then detained and taken to a police station.
She was charged with breaching a section of the Public Order Act that allows police to impose limits on public assemblies. The climate activist was released overnight on bail, police said.
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Thunberg will have to appear at a hearing on Nov. 15 at London’s Westminster Magistrates’ Court. The other protesters facing charges were also allowed bail.
The three-day Energy Intelligence Forum runs until Thursday. It features chief executives of Shell, Saudi Arabia’s Aramco and Norway’s Equinor, as well as the U.K.'s energy security minister and other speakers.
Protesters outside the venue lambasted the fossil fuel companies and accused them of deliberately slowing a transition from traditional energy sources to renewables in order to maximize profit. They also expressed opposition for the British government’s recent approval of new oil drilling in the North Sea, near the Scottish coast.
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Thunberg, who has been diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, a neurobiological disorder, has been a climate activist since 2015, when she started skipping school on Fridays to raise awareness for efforts to fight climate change.
She has also met with politicians and world leaders, urging them to make stronger efforts to fight climate change.
During her address before the U.N. in 2019, Thunberg said: "You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words… We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money, and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!"
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
