Campaigners from the Insulate Britain group – an offshoot of Extinction Rebellion – stopped traffic on Monday at the Blackwall Tunnel, Hanger Lane and Wandsworth Bridge.

The latest protests follow a series of incidents at motorway junctions serving the M25 in recent weeks, as well as on the M1 and M4 and at the Port of Dover. In some cases protesters have glued themselves to the road.

At the weekend the Government took out a new injunction to target protesters who cause disruption on the strategic road network linked to the M25. Anyone who breaks the injunction faces imprisonment or an unlimited fine.

In addition, Police will now be able to release information on the activists and provide evidence to National Highways so that injunctions can be enforced.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said: “We will continue to do all we can to prevent this self defeating, disruptive and incredibly dangerous behaviour being carried out by Insulate Britain. They are putting lives in danger and damaging their own cause."

The Metropolitan Police said in a statement it “considers protests of this nature unreasonable” and it has been “acting as quickly as possible to minimise disruption caused to members of the public using the roads”.

Protesters say their actions will continue until the Government pledges to insulate all of Britain’s 29 million homes by 2030. A spokesman for the group said: “We’re more scared of what will happen when the climate crisis causes the breakdown of law and order, than we are of injunctions and prison.”

(Photograph: Insulate Britain)