In New York, organisers were expecting some 100,000 to join the People’s Climate March ahead of Tuesday's UN summit, which will bring together 120 world leaders to discuss reducing carbon emissions that threaten the environment.
“You can’t fight climate change sitting on your couch and holding your breath,” said Jamie Henn, a spokesman for 350.org, which organized the New York event with more than a dozen other environmental, labor and social justice groups.
Sunday’s global rally - which is also being held in Berlin, London, Paris, Rio and Melbourne - is aimed at demanding changes that will lead to a world economy run entirely on clean energy.
The UN climate summit will focus on talks towards a pact 200 nations are working on that would rein in the rising greenhouse gas emissions. Negotiators aim to complete that deal in late 2015.
In Paris, activists said the mobilisation would act as a reminder for President François Hollande and his government of the huge responsibility they will shoulder when France hosts the Climate Conference in 2015.
“The climate crisis is already upon us and feeds the economic crisis. This is a silent tragedy, which kills tens of thousands of people every year”, said environmental activist and political figure Nicolas Hulot, who is joining the march.
Organisers have billed the event as the largest gathering focused on climate change since 2009, when tens of thousands of people gathered in Copenhagen in a sometime raucous demonstration that resulted in the detention of 2,000 protesters.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, REUTERS)
[france24.com]
21/9/14
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No 'Plan B' for fighting climate change: UN chief ....
ΑπάντησηΔιαγραφήUN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Sunday said there is no "Plan B" for fighting climate change, urging global efforts to galvanize action.
"This is the planet where our subsequent generations will live...There is no 'Plan B,' because we do not have 'Planet B,'" Ban told reporters after walking with an estimated 300,000 demonstrators in the People's Climate March through New York City.
The world needs to "galvanize our action" and harness the people's "power to change," Ban said.
The UN chief, wearing a T-shirt that read "I'm for climate action," walked nine blocks in the parade with U.S. Former Vice President Al Gore, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and French Ecology Minister Segolene Royal.
The march is believed to be the largest ever in the United States demanding measures to halt the advance of global climate change.
Outside New York, from London to Bogota, another 270,000 people turned out at about 2,500 events around the world, organizers said.
The event took place two days before Ban opens the much-anticipated Climate Summit at UN Headquarters in New York, which will draw more than 120 heads of state or government.
The summit is expected to set the stage for a crucial conference in Paris in December 2015 aimed at finalizing a new global climate change pact.
Politicians including U.S. senators, actors such as Leonardo DiCaprio and Evangeline Lilly, as well as activists and the general public marched though the city to highlight global concerns about the lack of international action to stop the worsening effects of climate change.
Marchers, chanting slogans or playing music, created a noisy carnival atmosphere as they filed through Manhattan's West Side. Some were dressed in costumes associated with indigenous groups, others wore protest T-shirts. One banner in the shape of a road sign warned "Climate Crisis Ahead."................http://www.china.org.cn/world/2014-09/22/content_33577969.htm