As Europe criminalizes environmental protest, some activists turn to sabotage

Nah. There’s more to it than just this nicely sounding sentence

I think that's the spirit of the text, but he's very careful not to actually call for violent protest. Instead, he repeatedly just says that it should be considered for obvious reasons. The text has a "won't someone rid me of this meddlesome priest" effect. Regardless, he makes a compelling argument and the violence he considers is purely against property and not people so, unless you're a property fetishist, the degree of violence being considered is nothing compared to the violence of climate change.

I'm all for better climate policy, but "because peaceful protest doesn't work" is a pretty bad justification. My peaceful protest to mandate wearing a colander in public won't work, but that doesn't mean that violent protest is justified.

Granted, I haven't read the book, so it might make a more nuanced argument.

A stronger argument is that you need to have a free and democratic opportunity to provide input. This is an easy case to make e.g. for slaves, or people under an apartheid regime. It might be possible to make the argument when it comes to e.g. multi-national companies having outsized influence on legislation, or other countries in which you can't vote instating policies that affect you.

I'm afraid this is not only for the UK

In Germany, France, Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands and the UK, authorities have responded to climate protests with mass arrests, the passing of draconian new laws, the imposing of severe sentences for non-violent protests and the labelling of activists as hooligans, saboteurs or eco-terrorists. the Guardian, Oct 2023

You might want to check out this report from Climate Rights International, Sep 2024. This one is not only talking about europe.

CRI CLIMATE PROTESTERS REPORT | On Thin Ice - Disproportionate Responses to Climate Change Protesters in Democratic Countries