PROTESTERS gathered outside London’s Science Museum to demand an end to its fossil fuel ties on Saturday ahead of a new gallery opening.

A 12-metre banner the full height of the museum was unfurled inside its energy hall as protesters streamed through the museum chanting “Adani out!”

The protest came as the museum prepares to open a new gallery tomorrow sponsored by the much-criticised coalmining and arms-producing conglomerate Adani, which will join fossil fuel giant BP and Norwegian oil firm Equinor as sponsors of the museum.

A protest band greeted visitors at the South Kensington museum entrance on Saturday as activists “reclaimed the museum” with a protest tour, scattering black confetti down stairwells and displaying a mobile of animals endangered in central India’s Hasdeo forest.

Speakers highlighted the impacts of the museum’s fossil fuel sponsors in India, Sri Lanka and Australia as protesters, dressed in black and carrying black umbrellas, staged a sit-in in the energy hall.

Their massive banner read: “Adani off our lands, out of this museum!” with an image of Adivasi women in India resisting the company. 

The protest took place as tribal rights activists in India gathered for a people’s assembly to organise resistance against destruction of forests for the benefit of mining firms including Adani.

Anya Nanning Ramamurthy from Youth Action for Climate Justice said: “In a time of climate crisis and the Palestinian genocide being live-streamed to our phones, it is disgraceful the museum thinks it is acceptable to partner with Adani, a company fuelling both of these and so much more.

“The Science Museum should be a trusted and reliable institution for education and inspiration but unfortunately it is clear that profits and personal relations are their priority.”