London

The British Police on Tuesday (Oct 17) detained Swedish climate campaigner Greta  Thunberg from a protest outside the energy sector's annual London get-together. According to a report by the news agency AFP, Thunberg, 20, was taken away by two police officers and put in the back of a police van outside the Energy Intelligence Forum.

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Before her detention, Thunberg joined a mass protest slamming closed-door agreements struck between politicians and representatives of the oil and gas. "Behind these closed doors, spineless politicians are making deals and compromises with lobbyists from (the) destructive fossil fuel industry," Thunberg told journalists outside the venue hosting the annual gathering.

"The world is drowning in fossil fuels. Our hopes and dreams and lives are being washed away by a flood of greenwashing and lies," she added.

The climate campaigner also said that it had been clear for decades that the fossil fuel industries were well aware of the consequences of their business models, and yet, they had done nothing.

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Protesters block all entrances to energy event venue

As per the AFP report, several hundred protestors gathered by the InterContinental London Park Lane hotel during the "Oily Money Out" demonstration, organised by pressure groups Fossil Free London and Greenpeace, blocking all entrances to the venue.

Banging drums, the protesters chanted, "Stop the oil, stop the gas." The protesters have argued that most industry profit is ploughed back into dirty energy that worsens climate change.

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"Oil companies have racked up billions upon billions of profit, breaking records across the board last year. Oily CEOs took home multi-million-pound pay cheques," Fossil Free London said in a statement.

"The overwhelming majority of this money is going straight back into fossil fuel expansion, not the green energy they claim to support," the statement added.

(With inputs from agencies)

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