We got here so easily, says mother in rooftop climate change protest

Eco-activists today revealed how easily they breached House of Commons security, as the ringleader was unveiled as a 40-year-old mother of three.

Emma Gibson, who has a six-year-old daughter and twin two-year-old boys, is a career activist who takes her children on climate change protests.

She leaped into the river Medway in front of a 70,000-tonne coal freighter in June, to stop it reaching Kingsnorth Power Station. She has chained herself to a Land Rover on a factory conveyor belt in Solihull, and was on Greenpeace boat Rainbow Warrior as it tried to block a ship full of tanks leaving for Iraq.

Speaking from the roof of Parliament, the 40-year-old from Whitstable, Kent, said: "It was very easy to get up here, there were no police in sight until we had all climbed up in position. We trained really well to make sure we got up here very quickly. We didn't realise it would be quite as easy as it was."

Previously the Liverpool University graduate has told how her family worries about the stunts, but she is too concerned about climate change to stop.

She is one of up to 30 Greenpeace activists spending a second day on the roof — as MPs return from their summer break — to highlight Government "weakness" on climate change. They have vowed to stay for another two days.

This afternoon they were joined by a "flash mob" of more than 100 people from the UK Youth Climate Coalition. They descended on Parliament Square wearing t-shirts emblazoned with the words Power Shift, and conducted a three-minute dance routine.

The rooftop campaigners, meanwhile, were handing out a 12-point manifesto calling for zero carbon emissions by 2030. They unfurled more than 15 yellow banners reading "Change the politics, save the climate" and were preparing to put another, eight metres long, across the Grand Hall roof.

Greenpeace executive director John Sauven said: "We've got to raise the temperature of the debate because we are running out of time. We are at a minute to midnight and there is so little time left but so much to do." Last night 23 protesters climbed down using a ladder and safety harnesses and were arrested, but about 30 remained. Campaigners said they had thermal clothing, food, water and sleeping bags.

Activist, Anna Jones, 28, speaking about the lack of security, said: "It was very simple, we just came over the wall. We brought ladders."

The protest came as the Committee on Climate Change warned Britain would not slash its CO2 output unless ministers abandoned years of free-market policies and forced companies to invest in green technology. The committee advises ministers on cutting emissions to 80 per cent below 1990 levels by 2050.

World leaders meet in Copenhagen in December to try to agree a new deal to curb the effects of climate change.