An oil heiress has donated nearly £500,000 to a fund which backs Extinction Rebellion, claiming that ‘disruption’ is needed for there to be action on climate change.
Aileen Getty, 62, pledged £487,000 to the Climate Emergency Fund and said that the move is not ‘necessarily restitution’ for the fortune her family made.
Ms Getty, who is the granddaughter of the tycoon J Paul Getty, said that she hopes other high-net individuals will also donate to the CEF, reports the Telegraph.
She said: ‘Whether the resources I have come from oil or not, I feel an urgency and it’s a privilege to give whatever resources you have.’
Aileen Getty, 62, pictured, has pledged £487,000 to the Climate Emergency Fund which backs Extinction Rebellion. Ms Getty is the granddaughter of oil tycoon J Paul Getty
Ms Getty told the Times that Extinction Rebellion protests are ‘necessary because it is evident the public still is not sufficiently engaged.’
The mother-of-two, who was married to actress Elizabeth Taylor’s son Chirstopher Wilding, also said she believes people are ‘complicit’ if they don’t act on climate change.
She explained how ‘most of us have the information at our fingertips’ and will eventually have to answer to future generations.
The oil heiress, who is still flying but is ‘willing’ to change her travel habits, said Greta Thunberg was one of her inspirations.
Ms Getty is the granddaughter of J Paul Getty, pictured circa 1960, who made money in oil
She said: ‘I’m willing to drop everything that needs to be dropped in order to arrive at a more equitable future for us all.’
Ms Thunberg recently completed a 15-day voyage across the Atlantic Ocean in a carbon-zero racing yacht from Plymouth, England, to New York.
When asked about the expansion at Heathrow airport, Ms Getty said she disagreed and a spokeman later clarified that she didn’t support disrupting flights.
A group calling themselves Heathrow Pause have said that they are willing to go to jail over plans to ground flights from the airport from September 13.
Scotland Yard said they are ‘deploying an effective policing plan’ to detect illegal activity, although admitted the drone-based protest brought ‘unique challenges’.
It comes as Heathrow officials met with the activists but were left ‘disappointed’ by the group’s plans to still carry out the action.
Extinction Rebellion originally came up with the idea of using drones to shut down Heathrow over the summer.
But it abandoned its plans after facing a backlash from police, ministers and MPs which accused it of putting lives at risk.
Extinction Rebellion activists are pictured around their boat in London opposite their camp on Waterloo Millennium Green as they staged a week of climate protests in July
The CEF donated £283,000 to Extinction Rebellion this week in its first payment to the group.
Last week Extinction Rebellion activists wreaked misery on drivers in Manchester by barricading main roads as part of a four-day ‘uprising’.
The climate campaigners wheeled a large boat reading ‘planet before profit’ into the normally busy Deansgate crossroads.
The demonstrators reportedly chose to occupy this particular junction owing to its allegedly unlawful levels of air pollution.
It mirrors the protests earlier this year in London which resulted in the crippling of the capital’s transport routes and saw more than a thousand arrests.
Aileen Getty is the second child of Sir John Paul Getty and Abigail Harris. Her brother Jean Paul III was kidnapped in the 1970s.
Ms Getty contracted HIV from an affair and has worked for several years to raise HIV-awareness, reports the Times.
The Gettys are the 56th richest family in the United State, with a net worth of $5.4 billion, according to Forbes.