Climate activists staged a striking protest outside Rome’s Colosseum on Wednesday, unveiling three melting ice sculptures symbolising a farmer, a cyclist and a construction worker to highlight the risks rising temperatures pose to outdoor labourers. Placards at the demonstration carried the message: “Fossil fuel corporations get rich, we melt.”

Greenpeace Italy and the CGIL labour union staged the protest to highlight conditions faced by outdoor workers during heatwaves. Campaigner Simona Abbate called for a phase-out of fossil fuels and heavier taxes on oil and gas companies to fund climate adaptation, while CGIL's Natale Di Cola said heatwaves were destroying jobs as well as the planet.

The protest came amid a summer of severe heatwaves across Europe since late May, which pushed Rome to deploy water cannons and misting stations at the Colosseum in June as temperatures neared 40C. Europe is warming roughly twice as fast as the global average, according to the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service.