38 people were arrested in Sydney and 10 in Melbourne over charges of not obeying police orders or failing to comply with directions. The protestors were among thousands of protests, who blocked roads across various cities in Australia.
Major roads were blocked in day two of global protests by the Extinction Rebellion movement demanding more urgent actions to counter climate change.
In Brisbane, protesters chained themselves to intersections in the city centre and three people locked themselves onto barrels filled with concrete. Police took into custody, a protester who was hanging from a harness beneath Brisbane's Story Bridge and brandishing “climate emergency” flags.
The Extinction Rebellion kicked off protests and street blockages in countries like France Belgium, London and Germany on October 7. 135 arrests have been made in London. Protesters have been asked to refuse bail, so that police holding cells will become full, restricting the capacity for further arrests. In Berlin, Extinction Rebellion protesters blocked a main traffic junction near the government district. They also created blockade at Potsdamer Platz, another central intersection on Monday.
Protesters in Australia and across the world want governments to declare a climate emergency.
More than 100 protesters were dressed as bees at Sydney's Hyde Park to highlight their claim that insects are under threat due to the human impact on the environment.
"I don't know that shutting the city down necessarily wins you many friends," Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews said.
The front page of Tuesday's The West Australian, a local daily was left intentionally blank for protesters to use as a placard.
The activists are running a "Spring Rebellion" series of demonstrations to pressure the Australian government into declaring a climate emergency.
Founded in Britain last year, Extinction Rebellion has chapters in some 50 countries and wants to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2025.
In New York, on Monday, activists with the movement stopped traffic and smeared themselves and emblems of Wall Street in fake blood.
