Climate activists march in New York calling on Biden to stop fossil fuels – live - The Guardian

Climate activists march in New York calling on Biden to stop fossil fuels - live | Climate crisis | The Guardian

Thousands expected to march in New York City in call to end fossil fuels

Good morning, blog readers.

Thousands of activists are expected to show up in New York City on Sunday for the march to end fossil fuels. The protest will begin at 1pm ET and a rally headlined by New York’s Democratic representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is expected to begin at 3pm ET.

The demonstration will fall days before the United Nations Climate Ambition Summit, which the UN secretary general, António Guterres, says will focus on on bold new climate pledges.

On Friday, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said President Joe Biden was not currently scheduled to attend the UN climate summit – a decision that is “unacceptable”, said Jean Su, energy justice director at the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the groups organizing the march.

She added:
The time is now for Biden to lead on the world stage, and show he means it when he calls climate change the existential threat to humanity.

More than 650 global climate actions took place earlier this week and more are expected in the coming days. Youth-led organizations, including Greta Thunberg’s Fridays for Future, played leading roles in organizing the mobilizations.

As the climate rally in New York City continues, climate activists in Germany sprayed orange paint on to Berlin’s popular Brandenburg Gate on Sunday in attempts to call on the German government to stop using fossil fuels.

“The protest makes it clear: it is time for a political change,” the climate activist group the Last Generation said in a statement, the Associated Press reports.

“Away from fossil fuels – towards fairness,” it added.

The Associated Press reports that police have blocked the area around the historic gate and confirmed that they have detained 14 activists that are affiliated with the Last Generation.

On the morning of 17 September 2023, members of the Last Generation climate group sprayed orange paint on the columns of Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate. Photograph: Clemens Bilan/EPATwo men remove paint from the columns of Berlin’s landmark Brandenburg Gate on 17 September 2023. Photograph: John MacDougall/AFP/Getty Images

Actress Susan Sarandon on NYU students' fossil fuel divestment: "You guys give me hope"

Dharna Noor

Actor and climate activist Susan Sarandon opened her speech by congratulating the students of New York University on the news of their university divesting from fossil fuels after years of pressure, as the Guardian first reported last week.

Addressing the crowd, she said, “You guys give me hope,” adding: “What we have to do is take responsibility and press those that are at the top to finally step up.”

@SusanSarandon at the #EndFossilFuels did a shout out to students from NYU who recently won a major fight by getting the largest public university to divest from fossil fuels

Representative Jamaal Bowman of New York led the crowd in chanting: “Climate justice now.”

“We are the revolution,” he said, adding: “It’s going to be our love, our heart, our vision that rebuilds America and saves it from itself.”

He railed against US subsidies to oil and gas companies, as well as the nation’s investments in the military.

“We continue to give almost a trillion dollars a year to our military-industrial complex, which is the number one contributor to carbon emissions in the world,” he said.

@JamaalBowmanNY : "We continue to give almost a trillion dollars a year to our military industrial complex, which is the number one contributor to carbon emissions in the world." pic.twitter.com/kI7IPTAEt6

Youth climate activist Vanessa Nakate: "We shouldn't allow corporations to have the license to destroy our lands"

Aliya Uteuova

“This is unfair. This is wrong. And this is unjust,” said Vanessa Nakate a climate activist from Uganda.

When we say that we want climate justice. We’re not just talking about transitioning to solar panels. We are talking about leaving no one behind when you’re talking about addressing the injustices that come with the climate crisis.

We shouldn’t allow corporations to have the license to destroy our lands, to destroy the air we breathe and to poison the water.

Last September, Nakate spoke to the Guardian on her climate fight, saying: “Africa is on the frontlines of the climate crisis but it’s not on the front pages of the world’s newspapers. Every activist who speaks out is telling a story about themselves and their community, but if they are ignored, the world will not know what’s really happening.”

UN comissioner for human rights: "We are subsidizing what is destroying us"

Aliya Uteuova

Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland and the UN high commissioner for human rights, is at the march’s press conference.

“I’m here as chair of the elders, but I’m also here as a grandmother and angry granny because we are subsidizing what is destroying us,” she said, adding: “Our house is burning as Greta Thunberg said, so the elders strongly support phasing out fossil fuel and incentivizing clean energy.”

Sharon Lavigne, director of Rise St James, an environmental justice organization based in the notoriously polluted region known as “Cancer Alley”, laid out the activists’ asks at a press conference held by Jean Su of the Center for Biological Diversity ahead of the march.

“We demand that [Joe Biden] stop all new fossil fuel approvals, phase out existing fossil fuels and declare a climate emergency,” she said.

If the president doesn’t phase out fossil fuels, she said, “our blood will be on your hands.”

Sharon Lavigne, director of RISE St. James, an environmental justice organization based in the notoriously polluted region known as "cancer alley," said if Biden doesn't phase out fossil fuels, "our blood" is on his hands pic.twitter.com/zS7plcQmRM

Here is what a few youth climate activists and organizers told the Guardian’s fossil fuels and climate reporter Dharna Noor ahead of today’s march:

Bree Campell, a 17-year-old organizer with Fridays for Future NYC, said:
Next year, myself and millions of young people will be newly eligible to vote – and climate is our number one priority.

People are expected to travel from far and wide to attend Sunday’s march.

“As an 11-year-old girl living with asthma in south-west Louisiana, I’ve experienced first-hand the harmful effects of air pollution on my health,” said Kamea Ozane, an 11-year old from Sulphur, Louisiana – part of the notoriously heavily polluted “Cancer Alley” region – who will attend the march with her mother, Roishetta Sibley Ozane.

She added:
Every child deserves clean air to breathe and a future free from the dangers of fossil fuels.

Thousands expected to march in New York City in call to end fossil fuels

Good morning, blog readers.

Thousands of activists are expected to show up in New York City on Sunday for the march to end fossil fuels. The protest will begin at 1pm ET and a rally headlined by New York’s Democratic representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is expected to begin at 3pm ET.

The demonstration will fall days before the United Nations Climate Ambition Summit, which the UN secretary general, António Guterres, says will focus on on bold new climate pledges.

On Friday, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said President Joe Biden was not currently scheduled to attend the UN climate summit – a decision that is “unacceptable”, said Jean Su, energy justice director at the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the groups organizing the march.

She added:

The time is now for Biden to lead on the world stage, and show he means it when he calls climate change the existential threat to humanity.

More than 650 global climate actions took place earlier this week and more are expected in the coming days. Youth-led organizations, including Greta Thunberg’s Fridays for Future, played leading roles in organizing the mobilizations.