There is global news coverage of the latest wave of climate protests by Extinction Rebellion (XR). The New York Times says the “British-based activist group” yesterday shut down parts of central London “for the second time in six months”, with the action planned to last two weeks and with 276 people having already been arrested by 6.15pm yesterday. It adds that XR activists also took to the streets in New Zealand, Australia, New York, Germany and the Netherlands. The Washington Post also covers the protests. The Daily Telegraph, Reuters and the Independent lead their coverage with the numbers having been arrested during the first day of the planned two-week protest in London. The XR protestors are demanding the government take “urgent action on climate change and wildlife losses”, reports Press Association. The Financial Times says protestors blocked “major central London roads” and adds that actions were taking place in “dozens of cities around the world”, including Los Angeles, Santiago, Paris, Berlin and Sydney. The Guardian reports from protests in New York, where it says activists poured fake blood over the famous “charging bull” statue. A Reuters piece reports on the global XR protests under the headline: “‘Sorry, this is an emergency’ – Climate protesters block streets around the world.” Another Reuters article says police began “forcibly remov[ing] climate activists” blocking a major street in Amsterdam. Climate Home News, Axios and the New York Times all carry coverage of the global protests.

The Australian Associated Press reports some of the actions, saying “climate protestors clog European cities”. A second AAP piece notes that “four teenage girls” were among 30 protestors arrested in Sydney. A Times article says the police have “fail[ed] to prevent” the protests causing disruption in central London “even as police arrested 280 people”. The Times also reports on the mixture of people joining the protests in an article under the headline: “Extinction Rebellion: Call centre worker joins lawyer, vicar and ex-deputy head to fight for the planet.” The Guardian and Daily Telegraph are among the outlets reporting the comments of British prime minister Boris Johnson, who yesterday called the XR protestors “uncooperative crusties” in “heaving hemp-smelling bivouacs”. Press Association also carries his comments in an article that says London is “brac[ing] for [a] second day” of disruption, which it says Johnson has urged protestors to abandon. Reuters reports on the response to protests from German chancellor Angela Merkel, who “defended climate protection measures condemned by critics as unambitious”.

Press Association reports that the protestors “bring colour and noise to [the] heart of London”, describing the action as a “carnival of civil disobedience”. Another Press Association piece reports on the celebrities joining protests in London, including Sir Mark Rylance, Juliet Stevenson and Daisy Lowe. The Guardian has pictures of XR protests in New York and, separately, video of the action in Australia, while Press Association has pictures from the London protests. BBC News has an article explaining “what is Extinction Rebellion and what does it want”.

The UK government has given planning approval to a large gas-fired power station at Drax in Yorkshire, the Times reports, with the decision overruling a recommendation by planning inspectors that the scheme should be refused because of its contribution to climate change. The Times quotes the Planning Inspectorate saying the plans to build up to 3.6 gigawatts of capacity would “undermine the government’s commitment…to cut greenhouse gas emissions”. In a letter outlining her decision, secretary of state Andrea Leadsom said that the UK would still need fossil fuel power in the future and that it was not for the planning system to block individual projects on climate grounds, reports BusinessGreen. [The letter acknowledges a “significant adverse impact” on emissions, but says that approving the Drax scheme would not, on its own, breach the UK’s legally binding Climate Change Act “given the scope of the targets…across many different sectors of the economy.] The news is also reported by BBC News, Reuters and Press Association.

Writing in the Guardian, columnist Polly Toynbee argues that even as “rightwing critics fulminate against the [Extinction Rebellion, XR] protestors…the public is finally waking up to the gravity of their cause”. The activists “looked like rush-hour office workers and civil servants”, Toynbee notes: “[M]ainly 30 to 50-year-olds, with no dreadlocked tree-huggers, SWP banners or black-masked anarchists looking for a punch-up”. She adds: “Their ordinariness makes Extinction Rebellion, or XR, especially effective.” Toynbee argues that the protests have already shifted public opinion, citing Ben Page of polling firm Ipsos Mori saying: “In our polls in 2013, 59% said the planet was ‘heading for disaster’. This year it’s gone up to 78%.” For the Independent, Sean O’Grady says the movement needs “political, not direct action” and that it would “get a hell of a lot further if [it] infiltrated the Tory Party”. In the Daily Telegraph, Madeline Grant says we should “reject Extinction Rebellion’s brand of neo-Puritanism” and should “treat warnings of imminent catastrophe with scepticism”. In a second Daily Telegraph article, Benedict Spence says the XR protest “exposes Left-wing activism as a global elite sham”. In the lead comment slot for the Daily Express, Stephen Pollard writes that there is “real danger behind Extinction Rebellion that needs to be exposed”. Pollard explains: “In reality, XR has a hardcore programme of revolution. Its aim is to destroy capitalism and our democracy – and its environmental demands are merely a move towards that.” For the Sun, Leo McKinstry describes XR as a “deranged fundamentalist religion…[that] trades in misery and fear”. He writes: “The eco loons are out in force once again, bringing mayhem to the streets with their childish protests.” Writing in the Times, Clare Foges says the climate activists “need Middle England allies” and that their “left-wing rabble tactics…are alienating the very people they need to win over”.

A series of newspaper editorials also discuss the XR protests. The Daily Mirror notes how those arrested during this week’s protests include an 83-year-old grandfather, which it says show “older folk, not just the young, are responding to the climate emergency”. It continues: “The frustration of drivers and passengers trapped in jams is understandable and the loose-knit group needs to beware of angering rather than inspiring the public. But the general good humour of non-violent Extinction Rebellion is refreshing after the thuggery of far right marches. And never forget the climate emergency threatens us all.” For the Sun, the XR movement is a “Marxist doomsday cult” and the protestors are “hysterical, costumed dupes clogging London’s streets”. The Daily Telegraph says: “Doubtless many people sympathise with their concerns about the fate of mankind should global warming continue unchecked, until they stop to consider the utter irrationality of XR’s approach.” It says the XR aim of cutting emissions to zero by 2025 is not “remotely feasible” and even if it were it would have a “calamitous” impact on the economies of the world. The Telegraph continues: “Effectively, the organisers of these protests want to return the world to a pre-industrial age which they appear to regard as man’s proper state…XR is essentially a front for a sub-Marxist, anti-capitalist, anti-growth movement that is attracting support from educated middle-class people whose common sense has been submerged beneath guilt and sanctimony.” The Independent’s editorial says the XR movement is “on the right side of history, whatever you think of the group’s style”. For the Daily Mail, the police “are doing precious little” to stop the protests. It says: “However much one may share their concerns over melting ice caps and rising sea levels, the demands of these climate change zealots are patently unrealistic.” The Evening Standard says “it’s only fair to ask why” the protestors want to block central London streets and bridges. It continues: “[T]hey have a very specific demand – and that’s a call to halt species extinction and greenhouse gas emissions in the UK by 2025…There are two problems with this. The first is that no one has voted for it to happen. The second is that it is impossible.”

Meanwhile, writing in the Financial Times, environment and clean energy correspondent Leslie Hook writes: “It’s a strange time when the world looks to a teenager for salvation. On Friday, the Nobel Peace Prize will be announced and Greta Thunberg, the Swedish climate activist, is tipped to win.” Hook adds: “If she does win the prize, however, it will say a lot about the shortcomings of the global climate debate. Efforts to save the planet over the past decades have not succeeded and emissions of carbon dioxide are still rising. If a teenager is the last best hope for action, it’s worth asking how this has come to pass.” Meanwhile, the Sun reports on the “outrage” over an effigy of Thunberg “found hanging from a bridge in Rome”. And Press Association reports that actor Sir Mark Rylance was “inspired by Greta Thunberg” to quit the Royal Shakespeare Company over its now-severed ties to oil company BP.

Conservative MP Sarah Newton writes in the House magazine that after the UK’s “world-leading net-zero target” the government now “must outline a strategy, concrete policies and a road map on how we are going to get there”. She continues: “I would like to see a new role created in the Cabinet Office that coordinates all government policy and plans to reach net-zero.” Newton adds: “[W]e must ensure that every sector of society is involved in the conversation. With an issue as big as climate change, we need everyone’s collective brainpower to find the right solutions and we must have everyone on board if we hope to implement them.”

A team of Australian and US scientist have published a study showing that the “stratospheric Antarctic polar vortex” is also driving hot and dry extremes in Australia in addition to the occurrence of El Niño and other variations of tropospheric circulation. “We show that weakenings and warmings of the stratospheric polar vortex, which episodically occur during austral spring, substantially increase the chances of hot and dry extremes,” they say, adding: “The promotion of these Australian climate extremes results from the downward coupling of the weakened polar vortex to tropospheric levels, where it is linked to the low-index polarity of the Southern Annular Mode, an equatorward shift of the mid-latitude westerly jet stream and subsidence and warming in the subtropics.”