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ENVIRONMENT

UK police charge Greta Thunberg after climate protest arrest

UK police on Wednesday charged Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg with a public order offence, following her detention at a protest outside an annual gathering of energy industry figures in London.

Published: 18 October 2023 16:42 CEST
UK police charge Greta Thunberg after climate protest arrest
Environmental activist Greta Thunberg at the Oily Money Out protest in London. Photo: AP Photo/Kin Cheung

The 20-year-old activist — a key face of the movement to fight climate change — was among 26 people charged by the capital’s Metropolitan Police, after she was held at Tuesday’s demonstration.

Thunberg was charged with “failing to comply with a condition” imposed under Britain’s Public Order Act dealing with public assemblies and released on bail.

She is scheduled to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on 15 November.

Thunberg was on Tuesday taken away by two police officers and put into the back of a police van outside the Energy Intelligence Forum, after joining a mass protest there.

Several hundred protestors had gathered outside the InterContinental London Park Lane hotel during the “Oily Money Out” demonstration, organised by pressure groups Fossil Free London and Greenpeace, blocking all entrances to the venue.

Prior to her arrest, Thunberg criticised “closed door” agreements struck between politicians and representatives of the oil and gas industry.

London police said they imposed “conditions to prevent disruption to the public” after officers arrived at the protest, which were then breached and prompted the arrests.

“The protestors were asked to move from the road onto the pavement, which would enable them to continue with their demonstration without breaching the conditions,” a police statement said.

Thunberg, who started the so-called “School Strike for Climate” movement as a teenager, was fined by a court in Sweden earlier this month.

It followed the court convicting her for having resisted arrest during a July protest that blocked traffic.

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ENVIRONMENT

Swedish government to scrap flight tax from next summer

Sweden's government has announced that it is abolishing the country's flight tax in its latest measure rolling back the environmental policies of the previous government.

Published: 3 September 2024 16:40 CEST
Swedish government to scrap flight tax from next summer

At a joint press conference with the far-right Sweden Democrats, Sweden’s prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, said that the tax had been an obstacle to Swedish competitiveness. 

“If you want to make sure of the ability to have good air connections and keep Sweden as an international hub, you must make sure not to discriminate against the very competitive advantage that Sweden has,” he said. “This is both in line with long-term climate policy and to protect the long country’s travel opportunities.” 

The flight tax was brought in back in 2018 by the previous government coalition of the Social Democrats and the Green Party, and was set at a deliberately low level, with the idea that it could then be successively raised. 

At the level it is set at this year, it adds about 76 kronor extra per passenger to a flight to Europe, about 315 kronor to a flight to the USA and about 504 kronor to a flight to Thailand. This year, it is expected to bring in total tax revenues of about 1.8 billion kronor. 

At the press conference, the government said that the tax would be scrapped entirely from July 1st next year. 

“We are doing this to promote air traffic across the country and to improve accessibility across the country. This will mean, quite simply, lower ticket prices,” the Sweden Democrats’ group leader, Linda Lindberg, said at the press conference. 

The government had previously considered halving the tax but has instead opted to abolish it. 

The country’s energy and business minister, Ebba Busch, brushed away the concerns that boosting air traffic would increase emissions. 

“As far as Sweden’s climate goals are concerned, it won’t make a huge amount of difference,” she said. “Our ambition is that this is going to increase the amount of air passengers which in the long run will mean more air traffic. This is going to affect climate emissions, but that’s something we’ll look at later on.”

Busch said that as most countries in the EU lacked a flight tax, it had been harming Sweden’s competitiveness. 

“This is extremely important for many companies and for large sections of Swedish industry — that we can keep our flight connections,” she said. “Only a minority of countries in the EU have a flight tax, so this has been a very tough competitive disadvantage for Sweden.”

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