Special UN summit, protests, week of talk turn up heat on fossil fuels and global warming
SETH BORENSTEIN
Sat, September 16, 2023
Activists walk through lower Manhattan for the Global Climate Strike protests, Friday, Sept. 23, 2022, in New York. The annual Climate Week, which coincides with the U.N. General Assembly, kicks off Sunday, Sept. 17, 2023, with tens of thousands of people expected in the “March to End Fossil Fuels” Manhattan rally, one of hundreds of worldwide protests.
Seth Borenstein
Sun, September 17, 2023
Climate activists block traffic on Park Avenue during a march protesting energy policies and the use of fossil fuels on Sunday in New York.
NEW YORK (AP) — Yelling that the future and their lives depend on ending fossil fuels, tens of thousands of protesters on Sunday kicked off a week where leaders will try once again to curb climate change primarily caused by coal, oil and natural gas.
But protesters say it's not going to be enough. And they aimed their wrath directly at U.S. President Joe Biden, urging him to stop approving new oil and gas projects, phase out current ones and declare a climate emergency with larger executive powers.
“We hold the power of the people, the power you need to win this election,” 17-year-old Emma Buretta of Brooklyn and the youth protest group Fridays for Future said. “If you want to win in 2024, if you do not want the blood of my generation to be on your hands, end fossil fuels.”
The March to End Fossil Fuels featured such politicians as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and actors Susan Sarandon, Ethan Hawke, Edward Norton, Kyra Sedgewick and Kevin Bacon. But the real action on Broadway was where protesters crowded the street, pleading for a better but not-so-hot future. It served as the opening salvo to New York’s Climate Week, where world leaders in business, politics and the arts get together to try to save the planet, highlighted by a new special United Nations summit Wednesday.
But many of the leaders of the countries that cause the most heat-trapping carbon pollution will not be attending the United Nations gathering or hear the protesters’ plea. And they won’t speak at the summit organized by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in a way that only countries that promise new concrete action are invited to speak.
Oliver Moore, 7, of Montpelier, Vermont, listens to a speaker during a rally to end the use of fossil fuels. About 75,000 people took part in Sunday's march in New York.
Organizers estimated 75,000 people took part in Sunday's march.
Among them was 8-year-old Athena Wilson from Boca Raton, Florida. She and her mother Maleah, flew from Florida just for Sunday's protest.
“Because we care about our planet,” Athena said. “I really want the Earth to feel better.”
People in the South, especially where the oil industry is, and the global south, “have not felt heard,” said 23-year-old Alexandria Gordon, who is originally from Houston. “It is frustrating.”
Protest organizers emphasized how let down they felt that Biden, who many of them supported in 2020, has overseen increased drilling for oil and fossil fuels.
“President Biden, our lives depend on your actions today,” said Louisiana environmental activist Sharon Lavigne. “If you don't stop fossil fuels our blood is on your hands.”
Nearly one-third of the world’s planned drilling for oil and gas between now and 2050 is by U.S. interests, environmental activists calculate. Over the past 100 years, the United States has put more heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than any other country, though China now emits more carbon pollution on an annual basis.
"You need to phase out fossil fuels to survive our planet,” said Jean Su, a march organizer and energy justice director for the Center for Biological Diversity.
Marchers and speakers spoke of increasing urgency and fear of the future. The actress known as V, formerly Eve Ensler, was scheduled to premiere the anthem “Panic” from her new climate change oriented musical scheduled for next year.
Climate protests have been going on worldwide for several years, but this march seemed to have more of a sense of urgency and frustration, said Anna Fels, a New Yorker who has been protesting and marching since the Vietnam War. And the march, unlike others, was more clearly focused on fossil fuels.
Signs included “Fossil fuels are killing us” and “I want a fossil free future” and “keep it in the ground.”
That's because leaders don't want to acknowledge “the elephant in the room,” said Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate. “The elephant is that fossil fuels are responsible for the crisis. We can’t eat coal. We can’t drink oil, and we can’t have any new fossil fuel investments.”
But oil and gas industry officials said they and their products are vital to the economy.
“We share the urgency of confronting climate change together without delay; yet doing so by eliminating America’s energy options is the wrong approach and would leave American families and businesses beholden to unstable foreign regions for higher cost and far less reliable energy,” said American Petroleum Institute Senior Vice President Megan Bloomgren.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Fossil fuels focus of Sunday march in NY; protest aims wrath at Biden
Climate protesters in New York and across the globe send message to United Nations
Reuters
Sun, September 17, 2023
Activists kick off Climate Week with protest against fossil fuels in New York City
(Reuters) - Thousands of protesters kicked off "Climate Week" and filled the streets of Midtown, Manhattan, on Sunday ahead of the U.N. General Assembly this week, calling for President Joe Biden and world leaders to end fossil fuel use.
With parades, concerts, and banging drums, some of the 15,000 expected waved signs that read "End Fossil Fuel Use" and "Fossil Fuels Kill" and "Declare a Climate Emergency."
One man was dressed as a melting snowman warning of rising sea levels. The message was for world leaders to save the planet from the use of oil and gas believed to be driving a warming globe.
Sunday's protests were part of a week-long international effort by Climate Group, a non-profit whose purpose is to drive climate change action and stop global warming, with more than 500 protests planned in the U.S, Germany, England, South Korea, India and elsewhere, totaling 54 countries.
Organizers of the protests expect a global turnout of more than a million people.
"Climate Week NYC is all about getting it done," organizers wrote online. "Through celebrating climate action, challenging ourselves to do more, and exploring ways to increase ambition, Climate Week NYC inspires, amplifies and scrutinizes the commitments, policies and actions of those with the power to make change happen."
Many scientists believe that so-called greenhouse gases caused by burning fossil fuels are warming the world and causing severe weather such as more intense hurricanes, heat waves, floods, wildfires and droughts.
Reductions in CO2 or carbon dioxide emissions are seen as a key element in abating climate change.
The demonstrations take place two months before this year's U.N. COP28 climate summit, where more than 80 countries plan to push for a global agreement to gradually phase out coal, oil and gas.
A recent U.N. report warned that the world was on a dangerous track toward severe global warming, and said more action was needed on all fronts, including drastic drop in coal-fueled power use by 2030, Reuters reported.
(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Sandra Maler)
SETH BORENSTEIN
Sat, September 16, 2023
Activists walk through lower Manhattan for the Global Climate Strike protests, Friday, Sept. 23, 2022, in New York. The annual Climate Week, which coincides with the U.N. General Assembly, kicks off Sunday, Sept. 17, 2023, with tens of thousands of people expected in the “March to End Fossil Fuels” Manhattan rally, one of hundreds of worldwide protests.
(AP Photo/Brittainy Newman, File)
The heat is about to be turned up on fossil fuels, the United States and President Joe Biden.
As a record-smashing and deadly hot summer draws to a close, the United Nations and the city that hosts it are focusing on climate change and the burning of coal, oil and natural gas that causes it. It features a special U.N. summit and a week of protests and talk-heavy events involving leaders from business, health, politics and the arts. Even a royal prince — William — is getting in on the action.
The annual Climate Week, which coincides with the U.N. General Assembly, kicks off Sunday with tens of thousands of people expected in the “March to End Fossil Fuels” Manhattan rally, one of hundreds of worldwide protests.
This week “is the start of an incredible pressure cooker that we are all part of,” said Jean Su, a march organizer and energy justice director for the Center for Biological Diversity. “It is coming from the top down, from that chief of the United Nations and now it is coming from bottom up in over 400 distributed actions across the world.”
Much of the heat is coming from Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who is convening a new Climate Ambition Summit on Wednesday that has a special twist: Only leaders from nations that bring new and meaningful action will be allowed to speak. And the U.N. isn’t saying yet who will get that chance.
It won’t be Biden, who is speaking Tuesday at the U.N., the White House said. Nor will it be the leaders of China, the United Kingdom, Russia or France – all major players in the development and use of fossil fuels -- who won’t even be in New York.
Guterres has repeatedly aimed his criticism at fossil fuels, calling them “incompatible with human survival.” He and scientific reports out of the United Nations have emphasized that the only way to curb warming and meet international goals is to “phase out” fossil fuels.
Phase-out is a term that world leaders in past climate negotiations and meetings of large economic powers have refused to back, instead opting for watered-down phrases such as “phase down” of unabated coal, allowing fossil use if its emissions are somehow captured and stored. The president of the upcoming international climate negotiations in Dubai is an oil executive from the United Arab Emirates and will be speaking at Wednesday’s summit, though his dual role has upset activists and some scientists.
“This really is an unprecedented soft power moment where the U.N. chief is throwing fossil fuels into the limelight and forcing heads of states to respond,” Su said. “Whether it’s yes or no, he’s at least forcing them to respond as to will you commit to no new fossil fuel development in line with climate science?”
But U.N. chiefs have little real power, said Climate Analytics CEO Bill Hare, a climate scientist.
“They can talk. They can persuade. They can from time-to-time constructively criticize and that’s all the tools that he’s got," Hare said. "The U.N. secretary-general has moral authority and he’s using that.”
Guterres “can shame leaders who show up with pitiful offers in terms of climate action,” said Power Shift Africa Director Mohamed Adow, a longtime climate diplomacy observer. “We’ve got to a point where we can no longer be able to afford the velvet glove diplomacy.”
Guterres will ask nations to accelerate their efforts to rid themselves of carbon-based energy, with the richest nations that can afford it going first and faster, and providing financial aid to the poorer nations that can’t afford it, said Selwin Hart, Guterres’ special adviser for climate action.
“We know the use of fossil fuels is the main cause of the climate crisis, coal, oil and gas,” Hart said Friday. “We need to accelerate the global transition away from fossil fuels. But it must be just, fair and equitable.”
But the same 20 richest economies who promise to slice carbon emissions “are now issuing new oil and gas licensing at a time when the (International Energy Agency and the science-based Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has clearly stated that this is incompatible with the 1.5 degree (Celsius, 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) goal of the Paris Agreement,” Hart said.
Yet speeding to net zero emissions of carbon requires rapid and huge reshaping of the energy landscape that “could inflict serious harm on the economy,” American Energy Alliance President Thomas Pyle said last month.
Environmental activists calculate that five rich northern countries – the United States, Canada, Australia, Norway and the United Kingdom – that talk about cutting back emissions are responsible for more than half of the planned expansion of oil and gas drilling through 2050. The United States accounts for more than one-third.
So activists and protesters at Sunday’s march say they are aiming their frustration – and pressure - at Biden and America.
However, Biden has repeatedly trumpeted last year’s Inflation Reduction Act, which includes $375 billion to fight climate change, mostly on solar panels, energy efficiency, air pollution controls and emission-reducing equipment for coal- and gas-fueled power plants.
“They want to be seen as the good guys, but the fact is they have very little to back it up,” said Brandon Wu, policy director at ActionAid USA. He pointed to the new drilling plans and said the United States has failed to deliver on its promised climate-based financial aid to poor countries and has not increased its money pledges like other nations.
"How much carnage does the planet have to suffer for global leaders to act?" Su said. "We want President Biden and other major oil gas producers to phase out fossil fuels.”
___
Follow AP’s climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment
___
Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears
___
Thousands march to kick off climate summit, demanding end to warming-causing fossil fuels
The heat is about to be turned up on fossil fuels, the United States and President Joe Biden.
As a record-smashing and deadly hot summer draws to a close, the United Nations and the city that hosts it are focusing on climate change and the burning of coal, oil and natural gas that causes it. It features a special U.N. summit and a week of protests and talk-heavy events involving leaders from business, health, politics and the arts. Even a royal prince — William — is getting in on the action.
The annual Climate Week, which coincides with the U.N. General Assembly, kicks off Sunday with tens of thousands of people expected in the “March to End Fossil Fuels” Manhattan rally, one of hundreds of worldwide protests.
This week “is the start of an incredible pressure cooker that we are all part of,” said Jean Su, a march organizer and energy justice director for the Center for Biological Diversity. “It is coming from the top down, from that chief of the United Nations and now it is coming from bottom up in over 400 distributed actions across the world.”
Much of the heat is coming from Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who is convening a new Climate Ambition Summit on Wednesday that has a special twist: Only leaders from nations that bring new and meaningful action will be allowed to speak. And the U.N. isn’t saying yet who will get that chance.
It won’t be Biden, who is speaking Tuesday at the U.N., the White House said. Nor will it be the leaders of China, the United Kingdom, Russia or France – all major players in the development and use of fossil fuels -- who won’t even be in New York.
Guterres has repeatedly aimed his criticism at fossil fuels, calling them “incompatible with human survival.” He and scientific reports out of the United Nations have emphasized that the only way to curb warming and meet international goals is to “phase out” fossil fuels.
Phase-out is a term that world leaders in past climate negotiations and meetings of large economic powers have refused to back, instead opting for watered-down phrases such as “phase down” of unabated coal, allowing fossil use if its emissions are somehow captured and stored. The president of the upcoming international climate negotiations in Dubai is an oil executive from the United Arab Emirates and will be speaking at Wednesday’s summit, though his dual role has upset activists and some scientists.
“This really is an unprecedented soft power moment where the U.N. chief is throwing fossil fuels into the limelight and forcing heads of states to respond,” Su said. “Whether it’s yes or no, he’s at least forcing them to respond as to will you commit to no new fossil fuel development in line with climate science?”
But U.N. chiefs have little real power, said Climate Analytics CEO Bill Hare, a climate scientist.
“They can talk. They can persuade. They can from time-to-time constructively criticize and that’s all the tools that he’s got," Hare said. "The U.N. secretary-general has moral authority and he’s using that.”
Guterres “can shame leaders who show up with pitiful offers in terms of climate action,” said Power Shift Africa Director Mohamed Adow, a longtime climate diplomacy observer. “We’ve got to a point where we can no longer be able to afford the velvet glove diplomacy.”
Guterres will ask nations to accelerate their efforts to rid themselves of carbon-based energy, with the richest nations that can afford it going first and faster, and providing financial aid to the poorer nations that can’t afford it, said Selwin Hart, Guterres’ special adviser for climate action.
“We know the use of fossil fuels is the main cause of the climate crisis, coal, oil and gas,” Hart said Friday. “We need to accelerate the global transition away from fossil fuels. But it must be just, fair and equitable.”
But the same 20 richest economies who promise to slice carbon emissions “are now issuing new oil and gas licensing at a time when the (International Energy Agency and the science-based Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has clearly stated that this is incompatible with the 1.5 degree (Celsius, 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) goal of the Paris Agreement,” Hart said.
Yet speeding to net zero emissions of carbon requires rapid and huge reshaping of the energy landscape that “could inflict serious harm on the economy,” American Energy Alliance President Thomas Pyle said last month.
Environmental activists calculate that five rich northern countries – the United States, Canada, Australia, Norway and the United Kingdom – that talk about cutting back emissions are responsible for more than half of the planned expansion of oil and gas drilling through 2050. The United States accounts for more than one-third.
So activists and protesters at Sunday’s march say they are aiming their frustration – and pressure - at Biden and America.
However, Biden has repeatedly trumpeted last year’s Inflation Reduction Act, which includes $375 billion to fight climate change, mostly on solar panels, energy efficiency, air pollution controls and emission-reducing equipment for coal- and gas-fueled power plants.
“They want to be seen as the good guys, but the fact is they have very little to back it up,” said Brandon Wu, policy director at ActionAid USA. He pointed to the new drilling plans and said the United States has failed to deliver on its promised climate-based financial aid to poor countries and has not increased its money pledges like other nations.
"How much carnage does the planet have to suffer for global leaders to act?" Su said. "We want President Biden and other major oil gas producers to phase out fossil fuels.”
___
Follow AP’s climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment
___
Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears
___
Thousands march to kick off climate summit, demanding end to warming-causing fossil fuels
Seth Borenstein
Sun, September 17, 2023
Climate activists block traffic on Park Avenue during a march protesting energy policies and the use of fossil fuels on Sunday in New York.
NEW YORK (AP) — Yelling that the future and their lives depend on ending fossil fuels, tens of thousands of protesters on Sunday kicked off a week where leaders will try once again to curb climate change primarily caused by coal, oil and natural gas.
But protesters say it's not going to be enough. And they aimed their wrath directly at U.S. President Joe Biden, urging him to stop approving new oil and gas projects, phase out current ones and declare a climate emergency with larger executive powers.
“We hold the power of the people, the power you need to win this election,” 17-year-old Emma Buretta of Brooklyn and the youth protest group Fridays for Future said. “If you want to win in 2024, if you do not want the blood of my generation to be on your hands, end fossil fuels.”
The March to End Fossil Fuels featured such politicians as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and actors Susan Sarandon, Ethan Hawke, Edward Norton, Kyra Sedgewick and Kevin Bacon. But the real action on Broadway was where protesters crowded the street, pleading for a better but not-so-hot future. It served as the opening salvo to New York’s Climate Week, where world leaders in business, politics and the arts get together to try to save the planet, highlighted by a new special United Nations summit Wednesday.
But many of the leaders of the countries that cause the most heat-trapping carbon pollution will not be attending the United Nations gathering or hear the protesters’ plea. And they won’t speak at the summit organized by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in a way that only countries that promise new concrete action are invited to speak.
Oliver Moore, 7, of Montpelier, Vermont, listens to a speaker during a rally to end the use of fossil fuels. About 75,000 people took part in Sunday's march in New York.
Organizers estimated 75,000 people took part in Sunday's march.
Among them was 8-year-old Athena Wilson from Boca Raton, Florida. She and her mother Maleah, flew from Florida just for Sunday's protest.
“Because we care about our planet,” Athena said. “I really want the Earth to feel better.”
People in the South, especially where the oil industry is, and the global south, “have not felt heard,” said 23-year-old Alexandria Gordon, who is originally from Houston. “It is frustrating.”
Protest organizers emphasized how let down they felt that Biden, who many of them supported in 2020, has overseen increased drilling for oil and fossil fuels.
“President Biden, our lives depend on your actions today,” said Louisiana environmental activist Sharon Lavigne. “If you don't stop fossil fuels our blood is on your hands.”
Nearly one-third of the world’s planned drilling for oil and gas between now and 2050 is by U.S. interests, environmental activists calculate. Over the past 100 years, the United States has put more heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than any other country, though China now emits more carbon pollution on an annual basis.
"You need to phase out fossil fuels to survive our planet,” said Jean Su, a march organizer and energy justice director for the Center for Biological Diversity.
Marchers and speakers spoke of increasing urgency and fear of the future. The actress known as V, formerly Eve Ensler, was scheduled to premiere the anthem “Panic” from her new climate change oriented musical scheduled for next year.
Climate protests have been going on worldwide for several years, but this march seemed to have more of a sense of urgency and frustration, said Anna Fels, a New Yorker who has been protesting and marching since the Vietnam War. And the march, unlike others, was more clearly focused on fossil fuels.
Signs included “Fossil fuels are killing us” and “I want a fossil free future” and “keep it in the ground.”
That's because leaders don't want to acknowledge “the elephant in the room,” said Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate. “The elephant is that fossil fuels are responsible for the crisis. We can’t eat coal. We can’t drink oil, and we can’t have any new fossil fuel investments.”
But oil and gas industry officials said they and their products are vital to the economy.
“We share the urgency of confronting climate change together without delay; yet doing so by eliminating America’s energy options is the wrong approach and would leave American families and businesses beholden to unstable foreign regions for higher cost and far less reliable energy,” said American Petroleum Institute Senior Vice President Megan Bloomgren.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Fossil fuels focus of Sunday march in NY; protest aims wrath at Biden
Climate protesters in New York and across the globe send message to United Nations
Reuters
Sun, September 17, 2023
Activists kick off Climate Week with protest against fossil fuels in New York City
(Reuters) - Thousands of protesters kicked off "Climate Week" and filled the streets of Midtown, Manhattan, on Sunday ahead of the U.N. General Assembly this week, calling for President Joe Biden and world leaders to end fossil fuel use.
With parades, concerts, and banging drums, some of the 15,000 expected waved signs that read "End Fossil Fuel Use" and "Fossil Fuels Kill" and "Declare a Climate Emergency."
One man was dressed as a melting snowman warning of rising sea levels. The message was for world leaders to save the planet from the use of oil and gas believed to be driving a warming globe.
Sunday's protests were part of a week-long international effort by Climate Group, a non-profit whose purpose is to drive climate change action and stop global warming, with more than 500 protests planned in the U.S, Germany, England, South Korea, India and elsewhere, totaling 54 countries.
Organizers of the protests expect a global turnout of more than a million people.
"Climate Week NYC is all about getting it done," organizers wrote online. "Through celebrating climate action, challenging ourselves to do more, and exploring ways to increase ambition, Climate Week NYC inspires, amplifies and scrutinizes the commitments, policies and actions of those with the power to make change happen."
Many scientists believe that so-called greenhouse gases caused by burning fossil fuels are warming the world and causing severe weather such as more intense hurricanes, heat waves, floods, wildfires and droughts.
Reductions in CO2 or carbon dioxide emissions are seen as a key element in abating climate change.
The demonstrations take place two months before this year's U.N. COP28 climate summit, where more than 80 countries plan to push for a global agreement to gradually phase out coal, oil and gas.
A recent U.N. report warned that the world was on a dangerous track toward severe global warming, and said more action was needed on all fronts, including drastic drop in coal-fueled power use by 2030, Reuters reported.
(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Sandra Maler)
Protests were a preview of planned marches in the city ahead of United Nations’ climate ambition summit on 20 September
Climate activists hold banners in front of the headquarters of BlackRock in New York. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Image
Joan E Greve and Dharna Noor
THE GUARDIAN
Thu 14 Sep 2023
Progressive lawmakers and climate activists rallied at the Capitol on Thursday to demand an end to fossil fuel usage, previewing a planned march in New York on Sunday ahead of the United Nations’ climate ambition summit on 20 September.
US launches $1bn tree-planting scheme to mitigate effects of climate crisis
“Clearly, saving the planet is the most important issue facing humanity,” the Democratic senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, said. “But here’s the ugly and brutal truth: right now, humanity is failing. The planet is crying out for help.”
The rally was one of more than 650 global climate actions taking place this week in countries including Bolivia, Pakistan, Ethiopia and Austria.
In New York, dozens of activists protested outside of the headquarters for asset manager BlackRock and Citibank on Wednesday and Thursday respectively, to call attention to both firms’ investments in fossil fuels.
The mobilizations are set to culminate with the March to End Fossil Fuels in New York City on Sunday, 17 September, which has been endorsed by 400 scientists and 500 organizations, including the NAACP, the Sierra Club and the Sunrise Movement. Organizers have predicted the event, which aims to convene tens of thousands of activists from across the country and around the world, will be the largest climate march in the US in five years.
“The March to End Fossil Fuels will be a historic, intergenerational and cross-societal march, making it clear that President Biden needs to restore his [campaign] promise and end the era of fossil fuels now,” Keanu Arpels-Josiah, an 18-year-old climate activist, said on Thursday at the Capitol. “We voted for a climate president, not for fossil fuel expansion.”
The New York City protest will focus on pushing the Biden administration to take bold steps to phase out fossil fuels, including by declaring a climate emergency, halting the approval of new oil and gas projects, and phasing out fossil fuel drilling on public lands. Biden has faced criticism from climate activists for continuing to approve oil and gas schemes such as the Willow Project in Alaska, even after he promised as a candidate to phase out fossil fuels.
Biden’s allies are quick to note that he also signed the Inflation Reduction Act, touted as the most significant climate legislation in US history, but the president will almost certainly face pointed questions about his record on fossil fuels during the summit next week. The UN secretary general, António Guterres, who has urged countries to take more aggressive action against climate change, has described the upcoming summit as a “no nonsense” conference.
“The price of entry is non-negotiable – serious new climate action that will move the needle forward,” he announced in December.
New York University will divest from fossil fuels in win for student activists
Speaking at the Capitol on Thursday, the California Democratic congresswoman Barbara Lee called on Biden to set an example for other world leaders.
“I am telling you, the rest of the world is looking to us because we have been, unfortunately, the polluters throughout the world,” Lee said. “If we don’t fulfill our moral obligation to address climate change, we can’t expect other nations to do so either.”
The high stakes of the summit were on display at the Capitol on Thursday. Some organizers brought their young children to the event. One organizer held a sign reading: “Joe, for the love of your grandchildren.”
Kamea Ozane, an 11-year-old from Sulphur, Louisiana, said she plans to attend the march with her mother to bring attention to how the climate crisis has affected her community. Sulphur lies in a notoriously heavily polluted region of Louisiana known as “Cancer Alley”.
“Every time I struggle to catch my breath, I am reminded of the urgent need to march against fossil fuels,” Ozane told the Guardian in an email.
Ozane’s message was echoed by progressive lawmakers on Thursday. “We’re at a critical moment in our history,” said the Democratic congresswoman Rashida Tlaib. “It’s fossil fuels versus our planet. It’s fossil fuels versus our future. And I know damn sure what side I’m going to be on.”
Multiple rally speakers cited recent environmental disasters – including wildfires in Hawaii, flooding in Libya and typhoons in the Philippines – as devastating examples of the cost of climate inaction.
“These are not isolated events. They are links in a chain, forged by our own decisions and by our own emissions,” said Senator Ed Markey. “Our country, our planet doesn’t need more fossil fuel facilities or oil exports. What our country needs is an oil change once and for all.”
Progressives are not simply waiting on Biden to take more action. Next week, Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky plans to reintroduce the Future Generation Protection Act. The bill would ban crude oil and natural gas exports as well as greenhouse gas emissions from all new power plants, while also bringing a halt to hydraulic fracking. Speaking at the rally, Schakowsky acknowledged the bill is unlikely to pass the current divided Congress, but she said progressives are planning for the long term to combat the climate crisis.
“We are preparing for the next election, where we [will] win and we [will] do everything that we need to do to save the planet and to save our people,” Schakowsky said at the rally. “We can do this.”
This article was amended on 15 September 2023 to reflect the updated number of climate actions taking place.
US launches $1bn tree-planting scheme to mitigate effects of climate crisis
“Clearly, saving the planet is the most important issue facing humanity,” the Democratic senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, said. “But here’s the ugly and brutal truth: right now, humanity is failing. The planet is crying out for help.”
The rally was one of more than 650 global climate actions taking place this week in countries including Bolivia, Pakistan, Ethiopia and Austria.
In New York, dozens of activists protested outside of the headquarters for asset manager BlackRock and Citibank on Wednesday and Thursday respectively, to call attention to both firms’ investments in fossil fuels.
The mobilizations are set to culminate with the March to End Fossil Fuels in New York City on Sunday, 17 September, which has been endorsed by 400 scientists and 500 organizations, including the NAACP, the Sierra Club and the Sunrise Movement. Organizers have predicted the event, which aims to convene tens of thousands of activists from across the country and around the world, will be the largest climate march in the US in five years.
“The March to End Fossil Fuels will be a historic, intergenerational and cross-societal march, making it clear that President Biden needs to restore his [campaign] promise and end the era of fossil fuels now,” Keanu Arpels-Josiah, an 18-year-old climate activist, said on Thursday at the Capitol. “We voted for a climate president, not for fossil fuel expansion.”
The New York City protest will focus on pushing the Biden administration to take bold steps to phase out fossil fuels, including by declaring a climate emergency, halting the approval of new oil and gas projects, and phasing out fossil fuel drilling on public lands. Biden has faced criticism from climate activists for continuing to approve oil and gas schemes such as the Willow Project in Alaska, even after he promised as a candidate to phase out fossil fuels.
Biden’s allies are quick to note that he also signed the Inflation Reduction Act, touted as the most significant climate legislation in US history, but the president will almost certainly face pointed questions about his record on fossil fuels during the summit next week. The UN secretary general, António Guterres, who has urged countries to take more aggressive action against climate change, has described the upcoming summit as a “no nonsense” conference.
“The price of entry is non-negotiable – serious new climate action that will move the needle forward,” he announced in December.
New York University will divest from fossil fuels in win for student activists
Speaking at the Capitol on Thursday, the California Democratic congresswoman Barbara Lee called on Biden to set an example for other world leaders.
“I am telling you, the rest of the world is looking to us because we have been, unfortunately, the polluters throughout the world,” Lee said. “If we don’t fulfill our moral obligation to address climate change, we can’t expect other nations to do so either.”
The high stakes of the summit were on display at the Capitol on Thursday. Some organizers brought their young children to the event. One organizer held a sign reading: “Joe, for the love of your grandchildren.”
Kamea Ozane, an 11-year-old from Sulphur, Louisiana, said she plans to attend the march with her mother to bring attention to how the climate crisis has affected her community. Sulphur lies in a notoriously heavily polluted region of Louisiana known as “Cancer Alley”.
“Every time I struggle to catch my breath, I am reminded of the urgent need to march against fossil fuels,” Ozane told the Guardian in an email.
Ozane’s message was echoed by progressive lawmakers on Thursday. “We’re at a critical moment in our history,” said the Democratic congresswoman Rashida Tlaib. “It’s fossil fuels versus our planet. It’s fossil fuels versus our future. And I know damn sure what side I’m going to be on.”
Multiple rally speakers cited recent environmental disasters – including wildfires in Hawaii, flooding in Libya and typhoons in the Philippines – as devastating examples of the cost of climate inaction.
“These are not isolated events. They are links in a chain, forged by our own decisions and by our own emissions,” said Senator Ed Markey. “Our country, our planet doesn’t need more fossil fuel facilities or oil exports. What our country needs is an oil change once and for all.”
Progressives are not simply waiting on Biden to take more action. Next week, Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky plans to reintroduce the Future Generation Protection Act. The bill would ban crude oil and natural gas exports as well as greenhouse gas emissions from all new power plants, while also bringing a halt to hydraulic fracking. Speaking at the rally, Schakowsky acknowledged the bill is unlikely to pass the current divided Congress, but she said progressives are planning for the long term to combat the climate crisis.
“We are preparing for the next election, where we [will] win and we [will] do everything that we need to do to save the planet and to save our people,” Schakowsky said at the rally. “We can do this.”
This article was amended on 15 September 2023 to reflect the updated number of climate actions taking place.
