Europe 1 with AFP // Photo credit: HANDOUT / SAYPE / AFP 17:56 p.m., December 09, 2023

Environmental activists from the group Extinction Rebellion dumped dye products into the Grand Canal in Venice and several rivers in Italy on Saturday. A gesture to protest against the "failure" of COP28. "The climate crisis is already having disastrous impacts on Italian territory," the group said.

Environmental activists from the group Extinction Rebellion (XR) dumped dye products into Venice's Grand Canal and several rivers in Italy on Saturday to protest the "failure" of the COP28 climate conference. In the middle of the afternoon, activists spilled a fluorescent green liquid into Venice's Grand Canal, amid passers-by, gondolas and tourists, according to images circulated on social media.

"We revolt against this inaction"

At the same time, activists clinging to ropes and harnesses unfurled a banner from the famous Rialto Bridge, which read "COP28: While the government talks, we are hanging by a thread". XR Italy said on X (ex-Twitter) that it had spread fluorescina, a "harmless" dye. "The climate crisis is already having disastrous impacts on Italian territory, science is telling us it is going to get worse and politics is wasting time with pranks," the group lamented.

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"We revolt against this inaction, we cannot remain silent while our future is sold to the fossil fuel industries!" Similar actions were carried out in the Tiber in Rome, in a canal in Milan as well as in the Po in Turin, according to images circulated on social networks. The move comes three days before the end of the UN climate conference in Dubai, which is in the midst of negotiations on the exit from oil, gas and coal, as OPEC tries to curb the momentum against fossil fuels.

In May, environmental activists had already coloured the basin of Rome's famous Trevi Fountain black after deadly floods in northeastern Italy that they said were a "warning" about climate change.