According to reports, Italian environmental activists used dye to dye the Grand Canal in Venice green on the 9th local time to express their protest against the lack of progress at the 28th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP28). According to photos on social media, green fluorescent patches are clearly visible on the water of the Grand Canal.
According to reports, on the 9th, small sections of rivers and canals in other Italian cities, from the Po River in Turin in the north to the Tiber River in Rome in the south, also turned green due to protests. Protesters from the Extinction Rebellion organization also unfurled a banner on Venice's Rialto Bridge that day, which read "COP28: While the government negotiates, we still struggle."
According to the report, the Extinction Rebellion issued a statement saying that the green color was caused by a harmless fluorescein dye and that "these waters will return to their original appearance within a few hours."
The report mentioned that although the organization advocated the use of harmless dyes, the mayor of Venice, Italy, Luigi Brugnaro, condemned these people as "ecological saboteurs" and called on the Italian authorities to punish them. Brugnaro said the canal's water must be inspected for safety reasons.