Twenty-nine people were arrested after climate change protesters occupied Edinburgh's North Bridge, bringing traffic to a standstill.

Protestors closed the capital's North Bridge to cars and buses on Tuesday as part of a wave of direct action against global and UK inaction on climate change.

Scores of peaceful environmentalists, many on bikes, blocked both ends of the street in the afternoon, some saying the planned to stay on right through the capital's rush hour.

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The action is just one of several carried out by Extinction Rebellion Scotland, a group saying that the UK Government of 'complicity' on global warming.

"When the government and the law fail to ensure the security of people's well-being and the nation's future, it becomes the right of citizens to seek redress," the group said in fliers handed out to passers-by.

"We rise in struggle for meaningful democracy capble of enacting the radical solutions our crisis demands."

Protestors at the Princes Street end of North Bridge broke out in to song in front of a row of police vehicles blocking accoss to the street.

To the tune of "Ye canny shove yer granny aff a bus, they sang "Oh, You canny make a profit when yer deid" and "If you all ye care about is money, yer a dummy".

Police offcers watched on without making, as of late afternoon, any attempt to re-open the the road.

Protestors waved flags bearing Extinction Rebellion's distinctive symbol, an egg counter in a circle.

One, James, 30, carried a giant papier mache skeleton called Marbhan on his back.

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"He represents all the all the loss of life, the loss of species and the threat to humanity, which climate change represents," he said. "We need to move much faster to a zero carbon economy, the faster the better."

Federico, 25, sporting a hat in the shape of a mushroom agreed. The Italian graduate student said he did not expect any trouble.

He joked: I don't want to get arrested myself. At least not until my thesis is finished."