Flood Wall Street climate change protest holds ground in lower Manhattan – as it happened

The Guardian’s Adam Gabbatt (@adamgabbatt) put together a video of the protests:

Tensions between protesters and the police are mounting: the New York Police Department used pepper spray on a group of protesters and some demonstrators have tried to push past the barricades.

The Guardian’s Amanda Holpuch has filed a story on the protest:

Hundreds of people gathered in New York City’s financial district on Monday, many with the intent of getting arrested as an act of civil disobedience to bring attention to the perils of climate change.

Flood Wall Street demonstrators, primarily dressed in blue to represent climate change-induced flooding, marched to New York City’s financial center to “highlight the role of Wall Street in fueling the climate crisis,” according to organizers.

At least one person had been arrested on Monday afternoon, though the New York police department said it did not yet have official reports on the arrest numbers.

The demonstration comes a day ahead of the United Nations climate summit and follows Sunday’s People’s Climate March – which saw what organizers estimated was 310,000 people marching in New York City, and tens of thousands of others in 150 countries across the world, demonstrating in an effort to put pressure on world leaders to act now to slow the damaging effects of climate change.

Read the full piece here.

StopMotionSolo has a good camera on the current action. Lines of police officers, in standard uniform, are moving into the crowd, introducing new barriers and creating a barricade around Wall Street. There’s jostling between the front line of protesters and police, but both sides seem not to be out for violence. It’s notable that there’s no riot gear present. One person in the crowd shouted “pepper spray”. Zip ties are visible hanging from some officers’ waists.

A new chant:

What do want? Climate Justice!

When do we want it? Now!

Police have now dug in to stop the march at Wall Street itself, which runs east of Broadway about two blocks north of the bull. The police have erected barricades to block the street.

The crowd chants angrily, “Who do you serve?! Who do you protect?!”

The protesters are marching north on Broadway. “We are unstoppable, another world is possible,” they chant.

The protesters are getting ready to move from their position to enter Wall Street proper, apparently timed to the 4pm close of the stock exchange. “Whose streets? Our streets!” the crowd chants.

Police are moving some barricades to allow the crowd to move.

US secretary of state John Kerry promised on Monday to put climate change “front and center” in American diplomacy, raising expectations for this week’s United Nations climate summit. Guardian US environment correspondent Suzanne Goldenberg (@suzyji) reports:

A day before the first world leaders’ meeting on climate change in five years, Kerry said he would take it upon himself to make sure the international community steps up to deal with the threat.

“This is an enormous challenge, and this is why the United States is prepared to take the lead in order to bring other nations to the table,” Kerry said in remarks at the start of a week of climate-themed events in New York.

“As secretary of state, I promise you I am personally committed to making sure this is front and centre of all our diplomatic efforts.”

The commitment offered a much-needed boost to the UN summit, being held on Tuesday.

Read the full piece here.

The president’s Twitter account looks to be getting warmed up for the UN summit:

There’s a marching band at the protest too. Now streaming via StopMotionSolo. Drums and the brass section has at least one trumpet, a sax and two or more trombones.

The UN climate summit gets underway amid a number of dangerous new milestones, Guardian US environment correspondent Suzanne Goldenberg (@suzyji) reports:

Scientists reported carbon dioxide emissions rose 2.3% over last year. The summer months meanwhile were the hottest on record, with 2014 on course to be the hottest ever year.

On Monday, the National Snow and Ice Data Centre reported the Arctic sea ice had reached its annual minimum for the year, retreating to 5.02 million square kilometers (1.94 million square miles).

That was not as low as in 2012 – when sea ice loss in the summer months smashed through satellite records. Last year comes in at the sixth lowest, but the NSIDC said the figures were still below the average since 1981.

The sea ice minimum was also reached two days later than the 1981 to 2010 average, suggesting that the Arctic is experiencing a longer season of open water.

Suzanne adds this context:

The decline of Arctic sea ice cover is seen as one of the starkest signifiers of a warming planet. However, scientists have a harder time interpreting ice action on the opposite pole: the Antarctic.

As the Arctic sea ice cover continues to decline, Antarctic sea ice was on course to set a new record for maximum ice cover this year.

Scientists said that ice cover had already beat the previous satellite record, which was set last year, and was now more than 20 million square kilometers (7.72 million square miles).

The researchers said Antarctic sea ice could expand even further in the coming days, and that the maximum had not yet been reached.Scientists said the expansion of ice in the Antarctic does not disprove global warming - as climate deniers have claimed.

The UN climate science panel, the IPCC, said in their blockbuster report earlier this year that ice processes in the Antarctic remain poorly understood, and it’s not clear why the ice is expanding.

A man was wrestled to the ground by police after running through the demonstration, the Guardian’s Amanda Holpuch (@holpuch) reports from the scene:

Police officers formed a circle around the man and other police officers before he was handcuffed and led away.

“He wanted to break the blockade to get to the Stock Exchange and have the sit-in there,” said Peter Soeller, an intern at Amnesty International who witnessed the incident.

Flood Wall Street organizers had said the sit-in would be taking place at the New York Stock Exchange, though demonstrators had settled two short blocks away on Broadway.

Soeller said he had met the man yesterday at the People’s Climate March, where he was walking with a group of anarchists.

Before making the run toward the Stock Exchange, the man had been standing on top of a phone booth in the crowd, assisting with the human microphone.

The pizza announcement earlier apparently was not just a tease, Newsweek says:

(h/t: @jessicaglenza)

(h/t @kaylaepstein)

Guardian US environment correspondent Suzanne Goldenberg (@suzyji) has more on the news that heirs to the fabled Rockefeller oil fortune withdrew their funds from fossil fuel investments on Monday.

The move “[lends] a symbolic boost to a $50bn divestment campaign ahead of a United Nations summit on climate change,” Suzanne writes:

The former vice-president, Al Gore, will present the divestment commitments to world leaders, making the case that investments in oil and coal have an uncertain future.

With Monday’s announcement, more than 800 global investors – including foundations such as the Rockefeller Brothers, religious groups, healthcare organisations, cities and universities – have pledged to withdraw a total of $50bn from fossil fuel investments over the next five years.

The Rockefeller Brothers Fund controls about $860m in assets, said Beth Dorsey, the chief executive of the Wallace Global Fund and the Divest-Invest movement, which has led the divestment campaign. About 7% are invested in fossil fuels.

But the Rockefellers’ decision to cut their ties with oil lends the divestment campaign huge symbolic importance because of their family history. The divestment move also helps bring a campaign launched by scrappy activists on college campuses into the financial mainstream.

Read the full piece here.

Here’s how the UN day will start tomorrow:

At 8 a.m., in the General Assembly Hall, the Secretary-General will open the UN Climate Summit 2014. At 11:30 a.m. in Conference Room 4, the Secretary-General will address the press.

Sit-in protesters dressed in blue manage a flood-like spectacle:

(Thanks to Guardian social media editor @kaylaepstein)

A striking aerial view of a banner at the protest, via Democracy Now. The banner reads: “Capitalism = Climate Chaos. Flood Wall St!”

The sit-in appears to be staying put for the moment.

Rally organizers tell the crowd: “We think it’d be a good idea to stay here awhile. Do you think it’s a good idea?”

The crowd cheers its assent.

An organizer continues:

We’re gonna order pizza... this is an opportunity to get to know one another better. Maybe strategy conversations about how do we take this home. It’s also an opportunity to talk about collective power. Our movement still has a lot to learn. And we can learn from one another. One of the things we need to learn about: How [inaudible] white privilege and those of us who are male to learn how to open space instead of taking it for ourselves.

This movement is growing. The communities most affected are rising up. [inaudible] together to create the space to [inaudible].

Now we’re going to break into small groups.

The Guardian’s Amanda Holpuch reports a police action against a member of the rally.

The live-streamer StopMotionSolo has just filmed a scrum of police around a protester who had climbed atop a bank of public telephones. The protester appears to have been arrested.

The journalist George Joseph shoots a photo:

I’ve spoken with Adam Gabbatt at the Flood Wall Street protests. He describes the scene:

[There are] Several hundred [protesters] certainly, although it’s difficult to make a guess. The protesters walked up from Battery Park... It’s a very colorful protest, a lot of people dressed in blue, there’s flags, there’s two large balloons which have “carbon bubble” written on them... People have staged a sit-in, they haven’t done it on Wall Street, which was their intention, but just here by the bull.

“Everything has been relatively calm here today, that I’ve seen,” Adam says.

Some of America’s pro-sustainability companies are making campaign contributions to climate-change deniers in Congress, writes Bruce Watson for Guardian Sustainable Business. Are they double dealing or victims of a flawed political system?

According to oft-cited statistics, climate scientists are 95%-99% certain of climate change – about as certain as they are of the link between smoking and lung cancer. Nonetheless, an estimated 58% of US Republican congressmen claim to be unconvinced of it. This group, the so-called “climate denier caucus,” is a big part of the reason that meaningful climate activist legislation keeps getting shot down. And according to a recent report, some of America’s most popular companies are helping to fund the effort.

Forecast the Facts and Sum of Us, two sustainability oriented NGOs, recently released “#DisruptDenial,” a report outlining the corporate contributions to the 160 members of the climate denier caucus in Congress. According to them, these legislators have received $641m in campaign contributions from US companies, including $98m in 2014. [...]

Other contributing companies, however, are actively pursuing sustainability agendas. For example, General Electric (GE) – which donated $1,756,457 – announced plans last year to reduce the energy intensity of its operations by 50% by 2015. Similarly, Google, whose efforts to fight climate change have included a $1bn contribution to developing renewable electricity, contributed $699,195 to congressional climate deniers, including US senator James Inhofe, a Republican from California, and US representative Darrell Issa, a Republican from California.

Read the full piece here.

More demonstrators sit down in the street. “Mic check! Sit down! Get down for justice! Thank you!”

Another consistent chant:

The people gonna rise like the water

gonna calm this crisis down

hear the voice of my great-granddaughter

saying shut down Wall Street now

The demonstrators have congregated around the Charging Bull statue at the top of Bowling Green park. Many demonstrators are sitting on Broadway, which divides at the bull.

“Mic check!” yells an organizer. “We’re gonna hang out here for a little while.”

The police so far are allowing the protest to proceed without warning of arrests or making a move to contain the protesters in the streets. The bull is surrounded by barricades.

The UN General Assembly is hosting a noon briefing in advance of tomorrow’s summit on the climate. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon calls for “all hands on deck”:

(h/t @kaylaepstein)

One view from the other side of Wall Street:

The demonstrators consider their next step, via Nation writer Wen Stephenson:

Tune into the rally via live stream at one of these feeds:

The marchers have seized traffic on Broadway. Caught in the jam is at least one tour bus.

Energy-hogging helicopters are in the sky to surveil the climate protesters:

The police have deflated the carbon bubble. Not a popular move with the crowd.

The Guardian’s Adam Gabbatt is also at the march:

The Guardian’s Amanda Holpuch is at the march and gets a shot of protesters in the streets:

More chants of “whose streets? our streets!” and now, “whose planet? our planet!”

The protesters are walking among stopped traffic down Broadway (against traffic). “Whose streets, our streets!” they chant. There are barricades blocking the sidewalk from the street. In this case the barricades are keeping the marchers on the street and off the sidewalk.

The marchers have left the park and are headed toward the financial district.

They chant: “We’re changing up the system, we’re changing up the plan. We colonize [?] the water, we colonize the land.”

The protesters are “walking the wrong way on Broadway against traffic,” according to live streamer StopMotionSolo.

There’s new pressure on leaders attending the UN climate change summit starting tomorrow to reach a global deal, the Guardian’s Fiona Harvey (@fionaharvey) reports:

Efforts to forge a new global agreement on climate change, kicking off in New York this week, will not repeat the mistakes that dogged the previous landmark climate summit in Copenhagen five years ago, the UN’s special envoy on climate change has vowed.

“This is a different environment to Copenhagen,” Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland and now the UN’s climate change envoy, told the Guardian. “Pressure on leaders for an agreement is building up more than 12 months ahead. I think leaders realise they need to have transformative change.”

More than 120 heads of state and government are about to meet in New York, convened by the UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, in the hope that a series of personal meetings will allow them to break the stalemate that has marked climate negotiations for most of the last two decades.

It is the first time that world leaders will meet to discuss global warming since the Copenhagen summit. Although that occasion produced the first joint commitments on emissions by major developing as well as developed economies, it was marred by scenes of chaos and recriminations in the closing hours.

Read the full piece here.

If you have an appetite for more granular information from today’s rally, you can scroll through #floodwallstreet on Twitter.

Today’s planned human flood of Wall Street is meant to evoke the flood of water with Hurricane Sandy that filled the area on 29 October 2012.

Here’s what Battery Place, a few blocks West of the protesters’ current location in Bowling Green Park, looked like on Hurricane Sandy night:

Organizers are addressing the possibility – likelihood it seems – of arrest for some protesters.

“We believe we’ll be facing fairly minor charges. And we believe if you’ve never been arrested before, this is the perfect action to join.

A representative of the Occupy Wall Street bail fund speaks next. “This used to be a huge fund,” she says.

Now it’s not so big. If you have friends or family who have resources, and there is bail leverage against you for some reason, we are going to ask that you talk to them first, so that those without resources don’t rot in jail. One more thing. You can help us make the fund bigger. We’re on Twitter @owsbail. You can share our donate link so that we can make the fund huge again to support actions like this and in the future.

Police are creating new barricades and lines of defense in the Wall Street area.

Event organizers are telling the crowd how the group will move.

“In a few minutes, we’re going to form a living river, and we’re gonna flow to Wall St and form a sea of humanity by sitting down together,” an organizer says.

Can we do one mic check? So I want to go over the brief plan. When we’re done here, we will flow out that side and this side. And we’ll form a river right out on the walkway. We’re not leaving right away. We’re getting organized. There will be three groups. The first two are the same. Everyone that’s willing to sit down and stay, and everyone that’s willing to sit down anyway, for just a little bit, and when we need to, those of us will rise up. The very last group are people we’re assuming don’t want to sit down. You still can. But that last group will help support.

We have two code words and three signals. [A discussion of codes and signals ensues.]

One line of critique from today’s march faults capitalism with promoting climate abuses. “There is no clean energy in the capitalist system,” a speaker in Battery Park concludes.

Chris Hedges, the journalist and author, speaks next:

Up that road lies the Emerald City of Wall Street. In that city the wizards of finance profit from the death of the planet. The wizards own the press, the politicians, the courts and the government. No one will stop them but the people. We are the people. This means revolution.

Much cheering and applause. The critique picks up on a theme of yesterday’s march:

Anna Merlan of the Village Voice is in Battery Park:

The @floodwallstreet Twitter account is a good one to follow for updates on today’s march. And below find links to live streams of the event.

Currently demonstrators are rallying at the World War II memorial in Battery Park. The march to the adjacent financial district is scheduled to begin at 11.30am.

Welcome to our live blog coverage of a mass rally in downtown Manhattan to “highlight the role of Wall Street in fueling the climate crisis”. A “flood” of people dressed in blue plan to march to the financial district and conduct a sit-in.

Today’s rally falls on the eve of a United Nations summit on climate change in New York. The Wall Street rally follows a historic demonstration on Sunday in which, according to figures provided by organisers, more than 300,000 marchers took to the streets of Manhattan and 2,700 climate events were held worldwide.

View a slideshow of the people’s climate march in New York here, and view pictures of associated marches around the world here.

“There is a long list of important issues before all of us, but the grave threat that climate change poses warrants a prominent position on that list,” US secretary of state John Kerry said in response to the rally, comparing the threat to terrorism and Ebola.

The Guardian’s Amanda Holpuch (@holpuch) will be reporting from the scene of the Wall Street march, where speakers are to include Naomi Klein, Chris Hedges and Rebecca Solnit. Our US environment correspondent Suzanne Goldenberg (@suzyji) is attending the various events linked to the UN climate week and will be reporting from those. We invite you to follow this blog and join us in the comments section as the day unfolds.