PROTESTORS blocked Barry Drive, between Kingsley Street and Northbourne Avenue, this morning (August 3) before climbing onto the roof of the peak national body for Australia’s oil and gas industry.

Extinction Rebellion, an international non-partisan movement, targeted the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA) to highlight “its insidious role in lobbying on behalf of the oil and gas industry in a time of climate emergency”.

Protestors were on Barry Drive and Marcus Clark Street, where the peak body is located, from 7am, with one protestor, Lesley Mosley, a 59-year-old grandmother, saying: “I want to be able to look my grandson in the eye and say I tried everything in my power to give him a safe future.

“I will continue to do whatever it takes to put this issue front and centre of the public conversation. Politicians need to realise that their children and grandchildren are no safer than anyone else’s when it comes to the catastrophic effects of the climate emergency.”

Ms Mosley was arrested and spent time in the Alexander Maconochie Centre following her role in Extinction Rebellion’s actions in Canberra around the Budget in May, where she glued her hand to the door of Parliament House.

Another protestor, Daisy Nutty, 48, said: “About 70 per cent of Australians want serious action on the climate emergency, but our government is not responding.”

The nurse believes the governments are failing them and failing their children.

“We ordinary people have a moral duty to stand up for life on Earth. I have pledged to my niece and nephew and all future generations, to save koalas and all life from extinction. I have a duty of care to them. That’s why I’m here today. I feel that civil disobedience is all I have left,” she said.

Climate protestors move their rally to Parkes