Thousands expected to attend New York City march calling for end to fossil fuels – live - The Guardian

Thousands expected to attend New York City march calling for end to 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.

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.”

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.