Just Stop Oil (JSO) supporters have spray-painted “1.5 is dead” on Charles Darwin’s grave after confirmation that last year was the first to breach the important global warming threshold.
Two people used chalk paint on the naturalist’s grave in Westminster Abbey, London, at about 9.30am on Monday, the climate protest group said.
Alyson Lee, 66, a retired teaching assistant from Derby, and Di Bligh, a 77-year-old former chief executive of Reading council, from Rode in Somerset, were involved in the action, JSO added.
The Metropolitan police confirmed two women were arrested on suspicion of causing criminal damage “with what is believed to be powdered paint at Westminster Abbey”.
A spokesperson for the church said they did not anticipate there would be any permanent damage and its doors remained open for worshippers and visitors.
Police led two women away from Westminster Abbey after the protest.
Lee said: “We are trying to get the government to act on climate change. They are not doing enough.”
Bligh said: “We’ve done this because there’s no hope for the world, really. We’ve done it on Darwin’s grave specifically because he would be turning in that grave because of the sixth mass extinction taking place now.”
Lee added: “I believe he would approve because he was a good scientist and he would be following the science, and he would be as upset as us with the government for ignoring the science.”
The EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service confirmed on Friday that 2024 was the warmest on record globally and the first calendar year that the average temperature exceeded 1.5C above preindustrial levels.
Pursuing efforts to prevent the world warming more than 1.5C above preindustrial temperatures is one of the key commitments of the global Paris treaty that countries agreed to in 2015, in an effort to avert the most dangerous impacts of climate breakdown.
The scientists said human-caused climate change was the primary driver for record temperatures, while other factors such as the Pacific Ocean’s El Niño weather phenomenon, which raises global temperatures, also had an effect.
Analysis from the Met Office, University of East Anglia and the National Centre for Atmospheric Science also found 2024 was the hottest on record, and “likely” the first year exceeding 1.5C.
A Westminster Abbey spokesperson confirmed that orange chalk was sprayed by climate activists on Darwin’s gravestone.
They added: “The abbey’s conservators are taking immediate action to clean the memorial and do not anticipate that there will be any permanent damage.
“The police were called to the scene and dealt with the incident. The abbey remains open for visiting and worshipping.”