The Council of Canadians joined with more than 400,000 people participating in the People’s Climate March in New York City today.
The march sent a clear message about the need for climate action on the eve of a major climate summit at the United Nations.
125 national leaders will be meeting at the UN this coming week in an effort to create momentum toward the December 2014 climate summit in Peru and ultimately 2015 climate summit in France.
That summit in Paris has been described as the last best chance for a global agreement to avert catastrophic climate change.
Today’s march was obviously massive – it attracted four times the number of people that had been anticipated, and it indicated that there would be a large degree of popular support for political leaders that championed this issue and committed themselves to moving forward with climate justice-based solutions.
Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper will not be attending this week’s climate summit and we all need to express in all ways possible that this is completely unacceptable given the fossil fuel driven crisis we all face.
The march was powerful, reflective of multiple community-based concerns, increasingly named capitalism as the clear culprit in this assault on the planet, and will only grow as we near the December 2015 climate summit in Paris.
The Council of Canadians also organized in communities across this country this weekend and our friends and allies mobilized in numerous countries around the world as well. These were powerful protests that highlighted the global and local aspects of this imperative.
In the days to come it will be amazing to see the global tally of people marching this weekend. We know that 30,000 marched in Melbourne, 40,000 were in London, and that actions took place in more than1 50 countries.
The world is mobilizing to confront the global crisis of climate change and Council of Canadians activists have an important role to play in this vital struggle.