Activists protest ahead of presidential inauguration

Last month, climate activists protested outside the US embassy in London ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration as US president, rejecting his climate denial and demanding urgent action to avoid the worst impacts of climate catastrophe.

The Copernicus Climate Change Service confirmed that 2024 was the warmest year globally since records began in 1850. And the year saw the first time that the average global temperature exceeded 1.5°C above its pre-industrial level.

Meanwhile, a new Oxfam GB charity analysis found the richest 1% had burned through their share of the annual global carbon budget — the amount of CO2 that can be added to the atmosphere without exceeding 1.5oC of warming — within the first 10 days of 2025.

The Campaign against Climate Change organised the US embassy protest. It said: “The US is already the world’s largest oil and gas producer. Now their federal government will be entirely in the hands of those who deny climate change and will stop at nothing to pursue profits. Even more alarming is Trump’s intention to pull the US out of the Paris climate agreement.”

His climate policies threaten the homes, livelihoods and lives of billions around the world, it added, especially in the poorest countries who have done the least to cause climate crisis.

It called on countries to “step up to phase out fossil fuels and provide desperately needed finance to countries on the front line of climate breakdown”.