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Activism

Climate activists have deflated SUV tyres in rich London neighbourhoods

They’ve stuck mung beans in the tyre valves, and insist they haven’t damaged the cars.

Climate activists are targeting rich SUV owners, deflating the tyres of over 50 vehicles in some of London’s richest neighbourhoods.

Motorists in Kensington and Chelsea, Belgravia, Clapham, and Islington awoke this morning to find their tyres let down after activists from Last Gasp inserted mung beans into their tyre valves.

It’s the latest in a series of similar protests, after climate activists targeted hundreds of SUVs across the country last month.

Around 50 vehicles were targeted across the capital. Image: The Last Gasp

A spokesperson for Last Gasp said: The SUVs that fill our children’s lungs with toxic chemicals are also fuelling the onslaught of flooding, drought, starvation, and war that the world is facing under climate collapse.

“Thousands of people die in the UK every year because of air pollution, and millions more around the world will die if we allow the natural world to break down.”

This week’s IPCC report, which sounded a “final warning” for avoiding catastrophic climate change, put an emphasis on the outsized emissions caused by the richest 10 per cent.

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This richest tenth accounts for between 36 and 45 per cent of consumption-based household greenhouse gas emissions – in part through their travel choices.

Along with deflating the tyres, Last Gasp left “satirical parking-style fines” on the cars’ windscreens.

The group said no damage had been caused to any of the vehicles.

A report by the campaign group Badvertising found one in 10 new cars registered in Kensington and Chelsea was a Range Rover.

April is set to see a growing wave of climate activism in the UK, with Extinction Rebellion promising the “most roadblocks ever” in the capital from April 9.

Activists from new group Just Stop Oil are on their eighth day of targeting oil terminals across the country, with 70 of the group’s supporters blocking the road outside the Navigator terminal in Essex this morning.

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