The West has grown bored with climate protests and has turned to repression

Climate Rights International report:rich countries are increasingly harsh on activists, instead of trying to change things

ROME – Look from that pulpit.According to a relationship by Climate Rights International, rich and democratic Western countries have become annoyed by the growing protests of climate activists, and have moved into a generalized repressive phase.While at the same time they still give theoretical lessons to countries in the southern hemisphere that use the same methods as them. Australia, Germany, France, Netherlands, Sweden, United Kingdom and United States:It's a trend now, writes the Guardian.

The report finds that repression in these countries – including long prison sentences, preventive arrests and harassment – ​​constitutes a violation of governments' legal responsibility to protect fundamental rights to freedom of expression, assembly and association.It also highlights how these same governments often criticize the regimes of developing countries precisely for not respecting the right to protest peacefully.

“Governments too often take strong, principled positions on the right to peaceful protest in other countries, but when they don't like certain types of protests at home, they pass laws and deploy the police to stop them,” says Brad Adams, director of Climate Rights International.

The escalation of the climate crisis has resulted record temperatures worldwide in 2024, causing food shortages, mass displacement and economic hardship, as well as deadly fires and floods.But he says that, rather than taking urgent measures to rapidly reduce fossil fuel use and halt ecological collapse, many rich countries have focused on trying to stop those raising the alarm.In short, they took it out on the finger pointing to the moon.