‘We’ll be fighting over a tins of beans because of climate change’

A Extinction Rebellion activist who smashed windows at the headquarters of Barclays Bank warned ‘people will be fighting over tins of beans’ if nothing is done about climate change.

Carol Wood, 53, along with Zoe Cohen, 52, Nicola Stickells, 52, Sophie Cowen, 31, Lucy Porter, 48, Gabriella Ditton, 28, and Rosemary Webster, 64, are accused of causing almost £100,000 worth of damage during the protest on April 7, 2021.

They used chisels and hammers to break glass panels on the exterior of the building in Canary Wharf, Docklands, Southwark Crown Court has heard.

Giving evidence Wood said she first became interested in climate activism in the 1990s and stopped eating meat.

‘It was a mixture of my beliefs – as a Buddhist I believe all sentient creatures have a soul – and the implications for the environment.

‘I don’t have a car, I have cycled since I was 20-years-old, I conserve water, I make my own deodorants, I try not to buy anything plastic.’

Wood said that in 2019 her daughter asked her about climate change and she told her what she thought would happen.

‘The warming of the earth will lead to ice melting. It will lead to the warming of the ocean. When we lose the ocean, we lose everything.

‘During Covid we saw people fighting over loo roll. In the future people will be fighting over tins of beans.

‘I told my daughter her future would look very different to the one we took for granted.

‘Those who have children know you would do anything to protect them.

‘Barclays is Europe’s biggest investor in fossil fuels.

‘I wanted for Barclays to just stop investing in my daughter’s death.’

Stickells told the court that she is the mother of 21-year-old twins.

‘I had conversations with them about the climate crisis. They know what’s coming.’

She told the court that she lives off the grid.

‘I have solar panels. I have given up my vehicle. I have a very low environmental footprint. I don’t eat animals for environmental reasons. I recycle everything. There is nothing more I can do personally.’

‘We need governments, cooperations, everyone to come together and look at this problem.

‘Did you crack a glass window’, asked defence barrister Owen Greenhall.

‘I did,’ replied Stickells.

’30 million people are displaced in Pakistan. Millions of people are starving in Africa. Thousands of people have died since we have been in this room.’

She told the court that she took part in the protest because she thought that nothing else would work.

‘Everything else has been tried and nothing has worked.

‘Everyone lives with a level of denial about climate change.’

Cohen, of Lymm, Cheshire, Wood, of Swansea, Stickells, of Harleston, Norfolk, Cowen, of Shaftesbury, Dorset, Porter, of Euston, central London, Ditton, of Norwich, and Webster, of Dorchester, Dorset, all deny criminal damage.

The trial continues.