Skip to main content

Advertisement

Advertisement

Thousands around the world join largest climate change march

NEW YORK — Hundreds of thousands marched through Manhattan and in cities around the world on Sunday (yesterday, Singapore time) demanding government action on climate change, in what organisers called the largest climate demonstration ever.

NEW YORK — Hundreds of thousands marched through Manhattan and in cities around the world on Sunday (yesterday, Singapore time) demanding government action on climate change, in what organisers called the largest climate demonstration ever.

The People’s Climate March drew more than 310,000 people to New York on Sunday, organisers said, tripling the original forecast. There were no arrests or incidents during the massive march, the police said.

The demonstration comes ahead of a United Nations summit this week on climate change and coincided with more than 2,600 events planned in 150 countries.

Organisers said the New York march was the city’s largest social demonstration in the past decade. Among the marchers was UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who will today host more than 120 heads of state and government at what he called a “political action forum” on climate change.

Demonstrators, including home owners flooded by Hurricane Sandy, New York political leaders and indigenous people fighting against oil companies in Latin America, chanted, sang and danced in an appeal to global leaders to act on climate change.

“We need to demonstrate that there are a lot of people who care about climate change and that this is a huge issue for all kinds of people,” said Mr Bill McKibben, head of the organising group, 350.org. “Since the fossil fuel companies have money, we have to have something on our side, and that’s people.”

Singer Sting and actor Leonardo DiCaprio also joined the march. “We are making a statement that is anything but complacent,” Sting said.

Activists said they wanted world leaders to agree to take measures to phase out the use of coal, tar sands, oil and natural gas. Burning these fossil fuels releases greenhouse gases that scientists say are responsible for raising the Earth’s temperature.

The UN summit will open on the heels of warnings from scientists about the risks of climate change. Last week, meteorologists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the Earth had its warmest June-to-August period on record and that this year was on track to be the warmest year ever. In a separate report yesterday in the journal Nature Geoscience, scientists said carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels, the main contributor to climate change, were expected to rise 2.5 per cent this year to a record 40 billion tonnes.

Meanwhile, hundreds of protesters yesterday were planning to risk arrest during an unsanctioned blockade in New York City’s financial district to call attention to what its organisers said was Wall Street’s contribution to climate change. Flood Wall Street organisers said they wanted to use the momentum gained by Sunday’s march to highlight the role of capitalism in fuelling the climate crisis.

As many as 2,000 participants will meet in Lower Manhattan’s Battery Park before a planned march at noon to Wall Street and the steps of the New York Stock Exchange for a sit-in and blockade without a police permit, event organisers said. About 200 people have said they will risk arrest by the New York City Police Department during the civil disobedience action, said spokesperson Leah Hunt-Hendrix.

The event’s organisers have roots in the Occupy Wall Street movement, which started in a downtown Manhattan park in 2011 to protest against what it called unfair banking practices that serve the wealthiest 1 per cent, leaving behind 99 per cent of the world’s population. Agencies

Read more of the latest in

Advertisement

Advertisement

Stay in the know. Anytime. Anywhere.

Subscribe to get daily news updates, insights and must reads delivered straight to your inbox.

By clicking subscribe, I agree for my personal data to be used to send me TODAY newsletters, promotional offers and for research and analysis.