Climate Activists Blockade NZ Stock Exchange

Photos: Nick Tapp

Protesters blockaded the New Zealand Stock Exchange this morning frustrated with global inaction on climate change and critical of market-based systems being proposed to tackle the problem.

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Demonstrators block an entrance to the New Zealand Stock Exchange.

Activists occupied an office on the second floor of the exchange and nine people were arrested blockading the south entrance to the building.

Another group of protestors scaled the Foreign Affairs and Trade building and unfurled a large banner singling out Fonterra as an environmental terrorist.

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Fifteen year old demonstrator Bella is arrested as police break the stock exchange blockade

Protestor Tess Munro Pedreros said she was sick of inaction and apathy towards climate change, and that the carbon trading model advocated at Copenhagen was a false solution.

“Carbon trading means the rich will continue to profit from exploiting the planet, and nothing will be done to actually tackle the problem.”

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This morning's protests were the culmination of New Zealand’s first National Climate Camp, which has been running in Wellington over the last week.

Click HERE and HERE for more images of the protests

ENDS

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