Global Protests Sound the Alarm on Climate Change
September 22, 2014
More than 600,000 people in 166 countries marched and demonstrated yesterday during the People’s Climate March to demand that world leaders take strong action to combat climate change. The largest of the demonstrations took place in New York City, where an estimated 310,000 people marched through the heart of Manhattan. Described as the largest climate march in history by the event’s organizers, the rally was held two days before the opening of a major United Nations (UN) summit on climate change in New York City. In all, an estimated 2,800 street demonstrations or marches were held around the world, including in Berlin; Delhi, India; Jakarta, Indonesia; London; Melbourne, Australia; Montreal, Canada; and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The marches were coordinated by 350.org, an activist movement that builds and supports grassroots climate-focused campaigns in 188 countries.
At least 125 heads of state and government as well as financial, business, and civic leaders were expected to attend UN Summit 2014, called by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Summit organizers hoped to “galvanize and catalyze climate action” to enact a meaningful legal agreement in 2015 to cut greenhouse-gas emissions and slow climate change.
Despite efforts to reduce emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases, carbon emissions were expected to set a new record in 2014. (© age fotostock/SuperStock)
Today, scientists with the Global Carbon Project predicted that emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels, cement production and land-use change over multiple decades would rise to a record 44 billion tons (40 billion metric tons) in 2014, a 2.5-percent increase over 2013 levels. Last week, researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that August 2014 was the warmest August on record. According to the researchers, the combined average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces for the month was 1.35 °F (0.75 °C) above the 20th-century average of 60.1 °F (15.6 °C), topping the previous record set in 1998. The last August with below-temperatures occurred in 1976, before the birth of about 50 percent of all Americans.
