A pair of Blockade Australia activists has attempted to publicly draw attention to its cause by travelling in a coal-filled train carriage near Newcastle.

At midday today (Wednesday 10 November) the demonstrating duo, 72-year-old ‘John’ and 52-year-old ‘Emma’ were seen atop a coal train en-route into the Port of Newcastle.

The pair were photographed at a Pacific Highway railway overpass.

This is the fourth action by the group since Monday, when a member attempted to shut down the Newcastle coal rail network. 

A spokesperson for Port of Newcastle said there was no impact to its operations from the protest activity.

The duo, meanwhile, said they intended to stay on board the carriage for as long as they could or until police wee able to remove them.

In a statement to local media, Emma admitted she was taking the drastic action because she felt she had limited other means to get their message across.

“This land I love has been desecrated for 200 years by the entity known as Australia. I believe we have a duty to resist the destruction,” she said.

“We’re facing an existential crisis due to accelerating climate change.

“We must urgently reduce fossil fuel use and cannot possibly open up new fossil fuel infrastructure” 

Similarly John believes the risks involved in the protest outweigh the possible outcomes. 

“Australia is intent on continuing to extract fossil fuels, we must confront this systemic corruption to avert the coming climate collapse as much as possible,” he said.

Blockade Australia says that while this action might “feel scary and confrontational, the risks involved are nothing compared to what’s to come if we don’t act now on the climate crisis”.

Blockade Australia plans to converge on Sydney in July next year for a full week of disruptive action.

“We need to begin blockading economic bottlenecks which are important to the functioning of Australia in order to get the response needed for survival,” a spokesperson said in a statement to the media.

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