People's Climate March: thousands demand action around the world - as it happened

Summary

Thank you for joining The Guardian’s global live blog coverage of the People’s Climate March. Demonstrations kicked off nearly 24 hours ago in Australia. Hundreds of thousands of people in at least 150 countries took to the streets to demand that world leaders take immediate action on climate change ahead of the United Nations climate summit in New York City on Tuesday.

Highlights from the day’s events:

• Initial estimates pegged the amount of people at the New York City protest at more than 310,000. “It’s completely blown our expectations,” said Ricken Patel, executive director of Avaaz, one of the groups that helped organize the march.

• UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon joined the demonstration in New York City, an unusual move for a high-ranking official. He was joined on the protest line by Jane Goodall and Al Gore.

• US secretary of state John Kerry issued a strong warning about the threat of climate change after the New York City demonstrations. Kerry said: “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.”

• A study released on Sunday shows that the world is emitting record C02 emissions at “dangerous and irreversible” rates.

• Emma Thompson effectively served as the London demonstration’s spokesperson. She told The Guardian’s James Randerson: “Unless we’re carbon-free by 2030 the world is buggered.”

• Australia’s labor environment spokesman Mark Butler criticized Australian prime minister Tony Abbott at a press conference ahead of the Melbourne march. Abbott has refused to join the upcoming UN conference.

• Australian Associated Press estimated that 30,000 people attended the Melbourne demonstration.

The Guardian’s US environment correspondent Suzanne Goldenberg has the latest on US secretary of state John Kerry’s evening speech to foreign ministers. Kerry said that climate change is as grave a threat to global order as Isil or Ebola. Goldenberg reports:

The strong words from Kerry and the numbers in the streets elevated climate change to the top of the international agenda – at least for a few hours.

Organisers had called the day of protests in order to put pressure on world leaders gathering in New York for a United Nations summit on climate change on Tuesday. It will be the leaders’ first such meeting in five years.

Kerry, in remarks to foreign ministers of major economies, said climate change should rank as a top-tier agenda despite competition from more immediate challenges.

“While we are confronting [Isis], and we are confronting terrorism and we are confronting Ebola, this also has an immediacy that people have come to understand,” he said. “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.”

Numbers are in for the demonstration in Montreal, Canada:

Campaigners crowd New York City during the mass demonstration to pressure politicians to take action on climate change ahead of Tuesday’s UN climate summit.

Tomas Hachard writes for The Guardian about how climate change is being incorporated into modern cinema.

As we have begun to see the effects of climate change more severely, more frequently and closer to home, so too have film-makers been spurred to address the consequences of an irrevocably damaged environment in new ways. In both fiction and non-fiction, climate change is no longer depicted as the eventual cause of future calamity, but a reality affecting everyday life.

On the heels of documentaries that hoped to raise awareness by laying out the facts about climate change have come new ones showing the consequences of our behavior through spectacular images of an increasingly inhospitable environment.

The New York City march is officially over and buses are rolling out of the area after a demonstration that far exceeded organizer’s, and the New York Police Department’s, expectations.

Emma Thompson, Vivienne Westwood and Peter Gabriel joined campaigners and UK flood victims at the People’s Climate Change event in London. An estimated 40,000 people were there. Here is a gallery of the day’s events.

Seen on the streets of New York City:

The New York City march has wrapped up, though tens of thousands of people are still roaming the streets. End-of-protest notes from The Guardian’s on-the-ground observers:

An aerial view of the People’s Climate March in New York City:

Archbishop Desmond Tutu writes for The Observer, calling for boycotts of activities that support companies that burn fossil fuels, much like the protests leveraged against firms that conducted business with apartheid South Africa.

Reducing our carbon footprint is not just a technical scientific necessity; it has also emerged as the human rights challenge of our time. While global emissions have risen unchecked, real-world impacts have taken hold in earnest. The most devastating effects of climate change – deadly storms, heat waves, droughts, rising food prices and the advent of climate refugees – are being visited on the world’s poor. Those who have no involvement in creating the problem are the most affected, while those with the capacity to arrest the slide dither. Africans, who emit far less carbon than the people of any other continent, will pay the steepest price. It is a deep injustice.

Photos

Guardian reporters in London, New York, Paris and Melbourne have filed their report on today’s People’s Climate March, which has attracted hundreds of thousands of demonstrators across the world.

Van Jones, an activist who briefly served as Obama’s “green jobs” tsar, said it was possible the march could, in hindsight, be viewed as an historic moment, much like the civil-rights era “March on Washington”.

Sunday’s protests were at the very least an organising triumph for Avaaz, 350.organd a new breed of climate activists who are trying to reach out beyond traditional green constituencies.

The day started in Melbourne, where demonstrators carried their giant Tony Abbott puppet in protest at his repeal of the carbon price.

The usual call-and-response of “What do we want? Climate action. When do we want it? Now” was revised to “10 years ago”, by a crowd that felt it had already fought this battle.

Here’s a look at the protests across Canada, collected by Guardian social media producer Kayla Epstein:

The march’s New York City route takes demonstrators down Sixth Avenue, past the headquarters of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation. Fox News is not devoting much, if any, time to cover the event. Marchers, however, still had a message for the conservative news network.

The Guardian has just put together a nice gallery of the scene in New York City, one of the many cities worldwide holding gatherings ahead of the UN climate summit, where more than 120 world leaders will convene for a meeting aimed at galvanising political will for a new global climate treaty by the end of 2015

Event organizers have pegged the current New York City crowd estimate at 310,000 people.

350.org founder Bill McKibben is an event organizer:

Guardian readers around the world have been submitting photos from their local climate marches. Kayla Epstein, social media producer at The Guardian, has collected some of the best photos.

Contribute your own here, and be sure to tell us your location when you submit!

El Palmar, Vejer, Cádiz, Spain

Hong Kong

Budapest

People’s Climate March organizers in New York City said the crowd is much bigger than expected, reports The Guardian’s US environment correspondent Suzanne Goldenberg.

Organizers said the crowds in New York Citywere much bigger than expected, filling 50 city blocks along the route, from 80th Street down to streets in the 30s.

“It’s completely blown our expectations,” said Ricken Patel, executive director of Avaaz, one of the groups that helped organize the march. “It’s filling the entire march route.”

“This is many, many multiples of our expectations,” Patel said.

He said organizers had to re-route the drone they were using for crowd estimates to take in all the people.

The Guardian’s Latin America correspondent Jonathan Watts on the scene at Rio de Janeiro’s climate march, which was besieged by rainy weather.

UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon has been spotted at the demonstration. It is slightly odd that he is participating as these protests are meant to pressure world leaders ahead of the UN climate summit in New York City on Tuesday.

Alongside Ki-moon, is primatologist and conservationist Jane Goodall, former US vice president Al Gore and the former prime minister of France, Laurent Fabius.

To kick off the march, demonstrators held a moment of silence that erupted in a loud call to world leaders to “act now” on climate change. The Guardian’s Lauren Gambino reports from the ground:

People from around the country and some from around the world have descended on New York City to sound the alarm for climate change. Kids, adults and the young at heart are in the march, demanding things like reduced carbon emissions, an end to fracking, divesting from fossil fuels, all under one clear global message to world leaders: act now.

At 12:58 the crowd of 250,000 or more marchers with their hands in the air went silent. After a minute of silence, they erupted in loud cheers and chants to “sound the alarm” on climate change.

Three generations McDaniels are participating in Sunday’s march. “These guys deserve a better future than the one they’re destined,” said Nikki McDaniel of New Jersey. Her sister, Carla Shannon, came with her children. Shannon said her son just learned about climate change in school and was very eager to participate.

A look at the New York City march from the city’s rooftops:

The Guardian’s Lauren Gambino is in the dense, slow-moving New York City march.

Three generations of McDaniels came out to demand action on climate change. “These guys deserve a better world than what they’re destined to receive,” said Nikki McDaniel, the “cool” aunt.

One of the lead organizers for the People’s Climate March, activist Bill McKibben, posted an update on the New York City marches pace.

The protests in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil have been plagued by bad weather. The Guardian’s Latin America correspondent, Jonathan Watts, sent in some pictures from the scene.

Martin Lukacs, an environment writer for The Guardian, is in today’s crowd in New York City. He sent in this photo of a parachute created by Oakland-based migrant justice group Culture Strike.

The parachute symbolizes the way climate change disproportionately impacts people in the global south, making refugees of millions, as well as species like the Monarch butterfly, disturbing their migratory patterns. Julio Salgado, a member of the group and an undocumented artist, says he is thrilled by how much art he’s seen in the streets on the march.

Actor Mark Ruffalo has been a leading opponent of fracking and is marching in New York City today. The Guardian’s US environment correspondent Suzanne Goldenberg spoke with Ruffalo in the crowd.

“The message is that we are here to demand that our leaders embrace the will of the people, and the will of the people is to make climate change a priority,” said actor Mark Ruffalo.

He said it was important for people to realise the technologies to deal with climate change - such as renewable energy - were already here

“The only thing they have to do is get out of the way.”

The idea of the demonstration is to get UN leaders to act and Ruffalo - unlike a lot of climate watchers – is not cynical. He thinks that the UN summit would produce concrete results.

“You can’t get 200 people together and not have something get out of it,” Ruffalo said. “It’s going to be huge. I don’t know exactly the effect, but I promise you one, five, 10, 15 leaders are going to come out of it, and do something. Somebody is going to be a hero.”

Among the the thousands of protesters in New York City, a few signs (and a parasol and bubble) stand out:

A branch of Colombia’s Ministry of the Environment is sharing images from the scene in Bogotá:

Scientists met outside the American Museum of Natural History in New York City on Sunday morning to prepare for the march. Scientific American spoke with climate scientists, geologists and biologists about why they decided to join the event.

“If the most well-informed citizens are not willing to act, what hope do we have of averting climate catastrophe?” says Pattanun “Ploy” Achakulwisut, a PhD student in atmospheric science. She enlisted other graduate students from Harvard University to join the march, partially with the help of a scientist / superhero poster exhorting scientists to “mobilize march [and] make history.”

An organization called Science Stands rallied scientists ahead of the march and encouraged them to join.

As paleoclimatologist Peter deMenocal of Columbia University puts it: the “modern climate is exceptionally warm relative to the last millennium, and future decades will be another world, unlike anything modern civilization has ever seen. This is a really sobering fact.”

So he will be joining the march along with Columbia colleagues and his twin 8-year-old girls. “It’s important they witness that a lot of people care about this issue and are willing to do something about it,” he says. “This is about their future.”

As the New York City march kicks off, here’s a look at today’s marches across the UK.

The “small but determined” group of demonstrators in Brighton:

From the town of Stroud in Gloucestershire:

Neil Young just debuted a new environmentally-themed song on the Democracy Now! broadcast of the march.

Click through to here an acoustic version of the track, Who’s Gonna Stand Up.

CNN columnist John D Sutter is posting short profiles of New York City marchers on Twitter.

People have travelled from all over the US to be a part of today’s events, with hundreds boarding buses and others taking the ‘People’s Climate Train.’

On Grist, Heather Smith writes about her experience taking the four-day journey on the People’s Climate Train from California to New York:

It becomes apparent, after a while, that many of the people on this train are growing to hate us. The People’s Climate Train people make up about 80 percent of the passengers, so with their aisle-blocking, folksong-playing, Miseducation of Lauryn Hill-blasting, workshop-holding, and earth-centric arts-and-crafts making, there’s not much room for the usual pastimes of non-activist long-distance train travel — like sitting quietly and reading a book.

Among the People’s Climate Train riders, opinions on this are mixed. Some worry that we are giving a bad impression of the movement. Others think that the Amtrak conductors are acting like total sticks-in-the mud.

Guardian environment writer Martin Lukacs reports from the start of the demonstration:

Under the banner of “frontlines of the crises, frontlines of change”, the head of the New York march will be led by a hundred youth from the communities most impacted by the root cases of climate change across the continent - including the Bronx, Jackson, Mississippi, and indigenous peoples from Canada, representing, in one spokesperson’s words, “the leadership of the future.”

Here’s a literally colourful video interview by Arthur Neslen in Brussels, with Sanjeev Kumar, 40, founder of Change Partnerships, an environmental NGO

Karl Mathiesen has been talking to locals in Paris who point out that while around 8,000 people (the latest police estimate) is a respectable turnout, it’s not that high given the city’s reputation for protest. He writes:

Antoine Heron, a Parisian and retired engineer said the march was big, but not compared to the social actions for which Paris is famous. “It’s not so big as if it were something about salaries and political matters.”

He said Parisians were anxious to see a global agreement come from the UN conference which will take place in their city next year. “We don’t want to have the same problem that we had in Copenhagen. Nations need to make decisions,” he said.

Our South America correspondent, Jonathan Watts, has been out at the march in Rio de Janeiro, where a few hundred people have been marching.

He writes:

Several hundred marchers in Rio have braved the rain and wind that has cleared the beaches of Ipanema. Not a bad turnout considering how allergic Cariocas usually are to even the slightest drizzle.

All ages and colours. Samba drummers knocking out a good rhythm as marchers sing “Ruralista acabando com o bom senso” (the agro-lobby are finishing off good sense”).

Many on this “Caminhada Pelo Clima” - which has been organised by Avaaz - are waving flags with green hearts supplied and bearing banners that read: “zero deforestation”, “100% clean energy” and “reduce, recycle and reuse”.

Renata Perrone, who has a green heart painted on her cheek, said it was a good turnout considering the rain. “ This is my first march. I’m here ‘cause it’s important, something everyone should care about. The more people join, the stronger we are. Brazil is not doing enough. No country is doing enough.”

Democracy Now is live-streaming from New York. They’re currently interviewing Bill McKibben of 350.org. He’s stressing the diversity of the march’s make-up, which includes a contingent of scientists:

Scientists are sick of not being listened to, for 25 years they’ve been telling us what’s going on, but no one’s paying attention

They’ve reached the point where ‘if they won’t read the freaking papers we’re putting out, we come out and tell you’

Journalist Tom Wills, who was at the London march, calculates there were around 27,000 people on the capital’s march, which puts it around the same size as Melbourne’s turn-out. His calculations are in this Google spreadsheet.

Our US environment correspondent, Suzanne Goldenberg, has been out celeb- and politico-spotting in New York.

She says that actor Leonardo DiCaprio, who was recently appointed as a UN climate envoy, is expected to join the march, along with actor Susan Sarandon. This is Suzanne pictured with what looks very much like anti-fracking campaigner, Mark Ruffalo, who this week called on Barack Obama to ban fracking ahead of Tuesday’s climate summit.

Some more pics from Bibi van der Zee in central London, who’s been talking to marchers.

Mother and daughter Maureen and Adaesi have come to the march together. “My children are around somewhere too,” says Adaesi. “We’ve come because something has to be done,” says Maureen firmly. “The government has to take action, and we have to take responsibility too - to buy less and live down a little.”

Damian Carrington writes:

Victoria Bamford, a 66-year old gardener from Wales, who left her home at 6am to join the London march. “We are on a knife edge now in every way.” She has noticed changes in the climate in her work. “You cannot rely on the seasons any more, and plants are getting stressed and ill. I’m no bloody expert, but we have to tackle the fossil fuel business. But I don’t think the government is doing anything.”

Karl Mathiesen in Paris says the march is around 1.5km. Police are putting the number of marchers at around 3,000 though organisers believe it may be higher.

Brussels has been busy too, albeit if not on the same scale as London. Our European environment correspondent, Arthur Neslen, has been down to a march there:

About 2,000 people braved heavy rain in downtown Brussels to fire off a message for urgent climate action to world leaders at the New York summit. The protest was smaller than expected after police instructed organisers to postpone it for 24 hours because of traffic concerns. That synched it with Brussels’ annual car-free day – but also, the dramatic end to a Belgian indian summer. Even so, a mostly young and energetic crowd danced in the downpour behind a samba fanfare all the way from the Palais de Justice to the Belgian finance ministry.

Here’s the audio of the Bishop of London’s speech, courtesy of James Randerson:

We are living on an Earth in an interconnected world, we live on an ark... the people in the first class cabins will not long remain impervious to the impact on poorer people in steerage, it’s just one world in which we inhabit

Karl Mathiesen in Paris writes:

Maryk Reesink and her daughter are Parisians who are anxious to see a global agreement struck in their city next year. Reesink says action on climate change is very important but she is pessimistic. “The politics in France is not occupied with this question. That’s why I’m here. I hope it can change things. I find it a nice idea to make many manifestations around the world. That it is something global that is moving.”

Speeches have begun in London, starting with the Bishop of London.

In Berlin, three marches are converging on the Brandenburg Gate. Here are a couple of marchers:

In Edinburgh, former Telegraph environment correspondent Louise Gray highlights this choice slogan:

There’s also a small march taking place in Newcastle.

One of our Australian bloggers, Alexander White, has written a post on the today’s marches and the “tipping point” that he believes climate campaigners are approaching:

This global event is an amazing confluence of international civic action, a full twenty-four hours of people power calling for the de-carbonisation of our world. The fact that it can happen at all is a reason to be a climate optimist.

...

It is heartening that increasingly environment groups are joining forces with other civil society groups like unions, faith groups and development agencies. Internationally, unions are building a global campaign under the banner “no jobs on a dead planet”.

These alliances and campaigns in civil society, as well as ones in the business world, are the start of a positive civil society “tipping point”, guided by the optimistic hope that we can still act to stop global warming.

The front of the London march has reached Parliament Square - but other marchers say they are still stuck all the way back at Temple...

There are still two and a half hours until the New York march, but preparations are well underway:

London is far from the only capital with impressive crowds. Karl Mathiesen, our man in Paris, says there are thousands of people out on the streets there.

Wow, Thompson is having a busy day, and fast becoming the de facto spokeswoman for the London march. “Unless we’re carbon-free by 2030 the world is buggered,” she tells the Guardian’s James Randerson. Listen to the full interview here:

Sky News has just been interviewing Emma Thompson as she walks the final few minutes to parliament.

Whilst I’ve been aware of climate change for many years, seeing the effects of climate change written so clearly on that exquisite landscape [on my trip to the Arctic] put a rocket up my arse. I’ve been being lazy. I’ve been working in poverty reduction but this issue affects everything.

Thompson didn’t realise she was live on TV and her ‘colourful’ turn of phrase prompts an apology to viewers by Sky’s journalist.

Asked why climate change isn’t higher on the political and world agenda, she says:

News outlets and fourth estate are very much controlled. I’m not suggesting there’s a conspiracy, but there’s a great deal of control over what kind of news goes out in what way. Those of who want to know what’s going on in the world have to explore quite carefully and forensically about what’s going on.

I think what it is is we don’t make the connections. Climate change is connected to all events, in particular war.

It’s quite hard to get a handle on the size of the crowds in London. A Metropolitan police spokesman couldn’t give me an estimate on numbers but said a “proportionate policing plan is in place”. Avaaz, one of the organisers, told me previously that they were expecting potentially north of 10,000.

The green NGOs and Green party are out in force in London today, as you’d expect. There are also some well-known campaigners, such as gay rights activist Peter Tatchell:

At the London march, Bibi van der Zee sounds the alarm at Brand’s apparent no-show (see 09.28)

‎People streaming down nearby roads to join the demo. It is going to be an extremely good turn out. No sign of Russell Brand yet though. Some concern he may have overslept.

Karl Mathiesen has been talking to some of the participants at the Paris march. He writes:

“We are here to push the negotiations to understand that you cannot speak about climate without speaking about the ocean,” says Catherine Chabaud, the French sailor and journalist who twice circumnavigated the globe solo twice and is now an adviser to the French government on ocean health.

Chabaud will tell the crowd at today’s Paris march that the ocean’s organisms are responsible for supplying half of the world’s oxygen and that the health of the sea is vital to combatting climate change.

“Of course we have to reduce emissions, but we also have to develop solutions for the oceans.” She says reducing the pollution flowing into the sea from industry and the creation of marine protected areas are important climate tools.

The London march has set off from Temple towards parliament, with some of the celebrities at the front:

And this from our head of environment gives a good sense of the scale of the turn-out:

And here, some of the shapes being thrown on the march:

“We’re calling for leaders to step up on Tuesday in New York and start making serious pledges to emissions cuts,”Alex Wilks, campaign director at Avaaz, one of the London march’s organisers, tells James Randerson.

Here the full interview here:

And Emma Davies, one of the marchers - “it is happening and some people are pretending it’s not happening, and that’s just not right”

Elsewhere, here are the crowds in Stroud, Gloucestershire:

And ‘Mr Frackhead’ has made his debut in Manchester:

The marches are getting ready to set off towards parliament in London:

In London, speeches are scheduled to start around 2pm. First up is the Bishop of London, and there will also be addresses by the designer Vivienne Westwood and Alice Hooker-Stroud of the Centre for Alternative Technology (which was celebrating its 50th anniversary recently, and of which we have a very nice feature on here).

Some more colourful marchers and fun placards in London:

And in Munich, too:

Naomi Klein says she’s beginning to think the marches “are going to be huge”

In Manchester, Friends of the Earth is organising an anti-fracking march outside the Labour party conference. Apparently they’ve created a huge puppet called Mr Frackhead - I’ll look out for photos later.

The group’s head of campaigns, Andrew Pendleton, says:

The UK’s environmental credibility has been sinking for years. The government has been bending over backwards to develop fracking and extract more dirty gas and oil, instead of investing in the UK’s huge renewable power potential and a cleaner future for us all.

Meanwhile, in London, the Guardian’s head of environment, Damian Carrington, notes the symbolism of a high tide coinciding with the marches:

Marchers are already gathering in serious numbers in London:

James Randerson, the Guardian’s science and environment news editor, is down in London. He’s been talking to Oxfam’s campaign director, Ben Phillips, who says climate change is “not just about nature, it’s about human beings”.

You can listen to his interview in full here:

“UCL claims to be one of the greenest universities in the world yet has millions in fossil fuels,” say students, staging a demonstration in the UCL quad to demand divestment from fossil fuels by UCL and other institutions, reports Bibi van der Zee in London. “This institution is supposed to be about the future of the world but is profiting from its destruction,” they say.

A large banner reads “UCL put your money where your mouth is - divest from fossil fuels”.

In Paris, organisers are hoping for thousands of people to turn out, despite poor weather (which also affected Perth, Australia).

The Guardian’s Karl Mathiesen reports:

Avaaz campaigners in Paris expect “several thousands at least” at the march starting at 2pm local time at la Place de la République. The Facebook page for the Paris march has 5,500 people signed up to attend. “30,000 people turned up in Melbourne,” said one Avaaz employee, “so we hope it can be big here too.” But organisers say it will depend on the weather which looks like it is clearing up after heavy showers this morning.

Crowds are building up in Manchester, where it looks like the march is benefiting from the decent weather forecast across most of the UK today:

And the Guardian’s Bibi van der Zee has bumped into a carbon bubble. It’s a metaphor for the carbon bubble some campaigners fear is building up - read more here for an explainer.

Meanwhile, in New York, where the march isn’t even due to start until 11.30am local time (4.30pm British summer time), the media have already arrived for what is expected to be by far the largest of all these global marches:

On the subject of world leaders, here’s the French president, François Hollande, pictured on Saturday receiving a petition from campaigners Avaaz, which has been signed by over 2m and calls for the urgent forging of “realistic global, national and local agreements, to rapidly shift our societies and economies to 100% clean energy by 2050”.

Ricken Patel, the group’s executive director, calls it “the most important petition we’ve ever done”.

The BBC has more on Ban Ki-moon’s unusual step of joining the New York march later today (as our correspondent Fiona Harvey noted earlier in the week, “high-ranking officials do not normally attend mass public protests”).

Mary Robinson, former UN special envoy, told the BBC:

I think the Secretary General recognises that this is for everyone, and it is important that in every country civil society comes out and puts pressure on their leaders to make the changes necessary so that we will have a safe world.

He doesn’t see the marchers as them and the insiders as being an us, rather he sees the two as part of building a momentum, it is civil society asking their leaders to be more ambitious.

The BBC’s Matt McGrath notes that several major countries are not sending heads of state to Ban’s summit on Tuesday, but there will still be more world leaders at his meeting than were at the landmark Copenhagen climate talks in 2009.

The leaders of China, India, Australia, Russia and Canada won’t be here. Observers believe the meeting can still achieve political momentum. After all, there will be more leaders in New York than in Copenhagen in 2009 when hopes of a last minute deal were dashed in confused and rancorous discussions.

Protesters have recreated an oil spill in front of a BP-sponsored exhibition at London’s British Museum, the Guardian’s Bibi van der Zee tells me. She writes:

Last month a US judget found BP guilt of gross negligence and bore clear responsibility for the Deepwater oil spill four years ago. The protesters, a group called ‘BP or not BP’, unrolled a long strip of black material and dressed up as dying pelicans, dolphins, turtles and out-of-work fishermen, in order, they said, to highlight the ongoing costs of the oil spill.

And here’s some video from Bibi (apologies for the quality).

London students: there are plenty of demonstrations taking place outside universities right now, including at LSE and UCL, calling for divestment from fossil fuels. Timings and locations here.

Time for another photo roundup, from Genoa in Italy...

...to Barcelona, Spain...

...and Zurich, Switzerland, yesterday:

Down under in Australia, Guardian Witness users have been sending in updates. Submit yours here.

A close-up of that Blue Mountains banner from earlier:

And marchers on the move in Adelaide:

Naomi Klein, the activist and author whose new book is about climate change and capitalism, writes in a comment article for the Guardian that the “true leaders” on climate change are not those at the UN summit on Tuesday but those in the streets today.

Is it a stunt? Well, sure, all protests are. But the mere act of expressing our collective sense of climate urgency goes beyond symbolism. What is most terrifying about the threat of climate disruption is not the unending procession of scientific reports about rapidly melting ice sheets, crop failures and rising seas. It’s the combination of trying to absorb that information while watching our so-called leaders behave as if the global emergency is no immediate concern. As if every alarm in our collective house were not going off simultaneously.

She also reprises one of the themes of her book, that it is not top-down governmental approaches or business that hold the key to tackling climate change, but grassroots movements:

Sunday’s climate march will serve many purposes for its many participants: meet up, boost morale, exert political pressure. But sounding the alarm together will help us bring our actions in line with our emotions. So many of us are scared of what is happening to the world around us; for one day, we will come together and show it. Yes, we will be showing that sense of existential urgency to our politicians. But we will be showing one another.

By sounding this people’s alarm, we will also be saying that we are no longer waiting for politicians to declare climate disruption an emergency and respond accordingly. We are going to declare the emergency ourselves, from below, just as social movements have always done.

Musician Jarvis Cocker, meanwhile, suggests people out today don’t march, but dance their way along the street in his comment for the Guardian:

Can you be arsed? Do you risk being disappointed again? Or do you sit this one out? I mean, climate change is a bit old-hat now, isn’t it? And some people say it doesn’t even exist – people like ... Nigel Lawson.

...

The People’s Climate March this Sunday is important. Because governments won’t put the case for action on climate change too strongly – no, that might be interpreted as being “anti-business”. It might dissuade corporations from building factories in countries that sign on to climate agreements. It might be harmful to THE ECONOMY. So once again it will be left to ordinary people to point out the blindingly obvious fact that destroying the place you live in is not a good idea. It really isn’t

Finally, The Observer has Desmond Tutu writing for it, who reprises a message about fossil fuel divestment that he’s made powerfully before:

As responsible citizens of the world – sisters and brothers of one family, the human family, God’s family – we have a duty to persuade our leaders to lead us in a new direction: to help us abandon our collective addiction to fossil fuels, starting this week in New York at the United Nations Climate Summit. Reducing our carbon footprint is not just a technical scientific necessity; it has also emerged as the human rights challenge of our time.

In the UK, the Manchester march gets going in just under an hour at Piccadilly Gardens in the town centre.

There are also marches in Edinburgh (1.30pm), Sheffield (from 1pm), in Stroud (12pm) and in Dudley (2pm). More details here.

Separate to the main London march, at 2.30pm activists from the group No Dash for Gas / Reclaim the Power will be outside Conservative central office at what they perceive as the party’s problem with climate change denial.

In a statement, the group’s Jo Martin said:

Climate change is slipping down the agenda at an alarming rate. Today thousands of people are marching across the world and they demand that their voices are heard. By denying climate change, these MPs are denying our children their right to a safe and sustainable future. We need to see decisive action taken on climate from our representatives, rather than repeated denial and ignorance.

Emma Thompson, who has recently returned from a trip to the Arctic with Greenpeace, has been talking to Andrew Marr on the BBC.

Marr asks what concerns her most about climate change. “I’ll tell you exactly what it was, it’s the water marks left by the glacial mess the sides of the valleys where they were once great... You forget that glaciers retreat but they also lose mass,” she says.

Marr asks her what she says to climate sceptics and people who argue the melting of the Arctic will make the world richer as natural resources are opened up. Thompson responds:

It’s a very strange position to take because as we note the weather changing, all of the violent storms, the flooding, all of the very clear and concrete data that we now have... the fact the last IPCC report which was thousands of scientists from around the world has said without a shadow of a doubt a) global warming is occurring, b) it’s happening much faster than predicted and c) it’s been caused by human beings and our burning of fossil fuels.

The moment for that denial is over. We’ve tipped over that point. What’s interesting is that now that the Arctic ice is melting and we are able to get to places we couldn’t get before and drill before, we’re drilling for the stuff that melted the Arctic ice in the first place...the cycle is speeding up. The Arctic is at it were the canary in the mine.

What can people do, Marr asks, to which Thompson says:

Go on the march, I’ll be there and speaking. Inform yourself. And understand the fact that although we’re up against huge difficulties - because fossil fuels are a very, very difficult thing to give up. But we now understand that we cannot afford to use them any more, it’s as simple as that, the day for those fuels is over. I want Cameron to very much step back away from coal, because that’s the worst one of the lot.

She says David Cameron has “absolutely” abandoned the passion for the green agenda that he showed during his “vote blue, go green” years.

Want to find out more about Thompson’s Arctic journey? Watch this great film by our very own Laurence Topham, who accompanied her:

This weekend’s events range from huge to modest. Petra Granholm emails from the remote Åland islands in Finland with this photograph of their climate march on Saturday, where she says 80 people turned out. In the background is their local dairy’s biogas plant and a biofuel bus that apparently runs on fish trimmings.

Granholm, who is chair of the Åland Society for Nature and the Environmen, says:

We believe the solution to the energy crisis does not come in one single package, but in many small alternative solutions. The islands also have a good chance of becoming self.sufficient on wind energy in the near future.

Celebs due down at the London march include actor Emma Thompson, musician Peter Gabriel and the comedian Russel Brand, who’s going to be down at Temple Place at 12.30. Here’s Brand on climate change, replete with reels of Fox News churning out climate change denial (read more on Fox News’ climate coverage in this post by our blogger Dana Nuccitelli).

Bill McKibben, the US environmentalist and co-founder of 350.org, has been telling New Yorker magazine about the genesis of the marches.

Everyone in this movement who heard Ban Ki-moon’s call for world leaders to come to New York City had the same thought: These guys are going to come and do the same thing they always do—offer a few fine speeches and head home having accomplished nothing. We figured we would invite ourselves to come along and try to press them harder than they’ve been pressed before. We don’t expect this will have immediate results here in New York, but we think building a big movement is the only way to get them off the dime.

Asked if it’s too late for action, he said:

I know how much carbon we can have in the atmosphere, but I don’t know the exact number we need in the streets. It strikes me that the more we have, the better our chances.

In New York, march organisers have said they’re expecting more than 100,000 people to turn out today.

While I’m sifting through the news coverage of the marches and Tuesday’s UN climate summit, here’s a little photo roundup to give a sense of the breadth of the Australian events.

The crowds in Melbourne, Australia, where today’s rolling marches kicked off, were even bigger than the 20,000 that organisers had earlier suggested, according to the Australian Associated Press. The AAP is reporting that around 30,000 people attended the march to call for action on climate change.

GetUp! campaigns chief of staff Erin McCallum told the agency:

This is a clear testament that Australians want climate action regardless of what Tony Abbott and his government are doing right now.

The key message today is we’re doing what he won’t, we’re standing up, we’re taking action as consumers, as citizens, as Australians around the world and all around Australia today.

We’re not going to wait for our government to wake up, we’ve woken up and we’re here and we’re going to take action starting right now.

Thanks for reading the Australian coverage of the People’s Climate March. We’ll be handing over to our colleagues in the UK and US, so keep following this blog for updates as those events begin to unfold shortly.

Around 200 people rallied for action on climate change in Darwin. It seems human signs are popular among climate activists.

It’s a sea of umbrellas at the march in Perth.

Around 4,000 people formed a human sign spelling out the message ‘Beyond Coal and Gas’ in Sydney this morning.

The community group Our Land, Water, Future organised the event and captured the result using a drone.

Here’s what the People’s Climate March looked like in Delhi:

In a few hours, campaigners will march through central London as part of the global action there.

They will be joined by celebrities including actress Emma Thompson and musician Peter Gabriel, and church bells will ring to mark the march through Westminster to parliament, where speeches and a rally will be held.

Thompson said:

There is little time left to prevent the worst excesses of climate change, yet our world leaders continue to stall.

I’ve witnessed the impact climate change is already having on the melting Arctic and on poverty-stricken communities in the developing world. We can’t go on pretending nothing’s happening. I’ll be at the march, and I hope I see you all there.

An editorial in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says the public will be watching more closely than ever when world leaders meet in New York on Monday for the UN’s emergency Climate Change Summit. [Australian prime minister Tony Abbott will not be attending]

The global People’s Climate March is aimed at gathering momentum and political will in anticipation of the New York summit, and also ahead of UN talks on a binding climate protocol next year, the Post-Gazette says.

Climate activists have a lot to be agitated about. The United States has yet to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, developed in 1997, which would have committed this nation to binding reductions in carbon emissions.

President Barack Obama announced ahead of the climate summit that he has negotiated voluntary agreements with companies to reduce their emissions of hydrofluorocarbons, a potent pollutant.

Voluntary reductions are desirable, but they will not cut emissions deeply enough to avert the effects of climate disruption. Only binding regulations can do that.

Read the full piece here.

The Perth People’s Climate March is set to begin, with organisers hoping cold and wet weather won’t keep too many people away.

Many people are reporting they didn’t know about the People’s Climate March events being held around Australia until today. Some said because the event seems to have been publicised largely online through social media, people not engaged with those mediums missed out.

From our live blog commenters:

Davidjwalsh

21 September 2014 2:11am

One Question to the organisers of this march.

To bring the people to your march you must tell the people you are having a march.

First I knew about the march was in the Guardian today.

Suggest you get some marketing and media mangers on board.

DoomGlitter

21 September 2014 2:23am

...first I heard of it was this morning..

DoomGlitter

21 September 2014 2:15am

...social media is generally great..

for those under 40...

Unfortunately, we have an aging population..

The information needs to be in your face, sorry in theirs.. not a matter of searching for it.

The People’s Climate March in Canberra had more of a festival atmosphere, with musicians playing on the lawns of the Australian National University where the main event was held.

On-site climate workshops were held on topics like divestment of shares in fossil fuels.

Bill Ryan, a 92-year-old grandfather and WWII Kokoda veteran, addressed the crowd. He has long protested against Whitehaven Coal’s Maules Creek mine in north-west NSW.

There were also giant turtles.

Meanwhile in Adelaide, people met in Rundle Park before marching through the streets.

Speakers at that event included Patrick Greene, who has worked in the solar energy industry for several years. He said the government was jeopardising renewable energy jobs.

For myself and 13,000 other solar workers around Australia, this industry is our livelihood. We go to work each morning knowing we’re doing something to make the climate a little bit safer for our kids.

With this government in power, our entire industry is at risk with this review of the renewable energy target.

In Bendigo, people are campaigning for global climate action by holding a picnic.

Guardian Australia reporter Nick Evershed has stumbled across the People’s Climate March unfolding in Glebe.

The police [push]bike squad in Cairns are keeping an eye on climate marchers.

Back to the People’s Climate March unfolding in Melbourne. Guardian Australia reporter Oliver Milman is on the ground and tweeting updates here.

Ben and Jerry’s — undeterred by calls from Queensland environment minister Andrew Powell to boycott the ice-cream company because he claims their calls to protect the reef had jeopardised jobs and tourism dollars — turned up at Melbourne’s rally.

Jeremy Lawrence, a mechanical engineer, told reporter Oliver Milman he was attending the Melbourne event as an “economic rationalist libertarian”. Lawrence says:

If you talk to a lot of conservative engineers, the older ones who plan the grid, they can say it’s not going to stay like it is now for the next 50 years. They say other countries around the world will leapfrog us, with countries like India and Africa set to leapfrog us in their renewable energy efforts.

Meanwhile, deputy Greens leader Adam Bandt posed for a photo with marchers.

Here are some comments from Guardian readers watching our live coverage of the People’s Climate March. Keep your thoughts coming.

jclucas

21 September 2014 3:52am

Pressure must be brought on to the Abbott government from every possible source to take meaningful action against climate change.

The Abbott government is under the narrow special interests of the fossil fuel industry.

It is not good enough.

The whole world is calling for a transition to renewable energy away from fossil fuels.

How can we allow the vested interests of the polluters to control the future of the planet?

Boon Tee Tan

21 September 2014 3:15am

Action is the word. No more procrastination. Reduce massive energy consumption and waste. Nature is not in the habit of waiting.

Stopthelies

21 September 2014 2:48am

Good on you!!!!

I am marching in Perth - hottest September day for ~ 90 years yesterday, rain and wind today (we need the rain!) but I am going!

And a pox on all the whingers here who can't get away from their keyboards for long enough to make a sign and march!

Meanwhile, here’s a lovely picture from the climate march on the Sunshine Coast — Gubbi Gubbi Dancers on the beach, courtesy of Reece Proudfoot.

In around 12 hours time, people will take to the streets in New York for the People’s Climate March event there, with Leonardo DiCaprio, former US vice president Al Gore, UN secretary general Ban ki-moon and mayor Bill de Blasio set to take part.

Organisers predict as many as 100,000 people will march through midtown Manhattan, which would make it the biggest climate rally in history.

But the Wire reports that many businesses are unprepared for the mass march and had no idea it was happening until informed by journalists.

Two ‘Climate Trains’ that have traveled from California to New York will make stops along the way to pick up marchers in Denver, Chicago, Reno and Omaha, the Wire reports.

The event will feature giant movable art installations, a 300-foot-long banner that reads ‘Capitalism = Climate Chaos – Flood Wall Street’, and a large recreation of Noah’s ark.

World leaders will meet for the UN’s emergency Climate Change Summit in New York on Monday. Australian prime minister Tony Abbott will not be attending.

Here are pictures from People’s Climate March events happening around the world as people spring to action across different time zones.

Jakarta

Los Angeles

Sydney

Melbourne

Kiribati

The stage has been crashed at the Melbourne rally, Guardian Australia reporter Oliver Milman says.

Police tell him there are “easily” more than 10,000 people gathered, though numbers aren’t final.

A strong crowd has gathered for the People’s Climate March at the State Library of Victoria in Melbourne.

Victoria Marshall-Cerins and her daughter Anna told reporter Oliver Milman that they believe climate change is one of the biggest issues facing Australia. Marshall-Cerins says:

We’re here because of the fact that Australia is now dragging its heels –we’ve gone from being one of the world leaders on climate change to going backwards.

The ‘town-crier’ is getting in on the action too.

An organiser of the march said people appeared to be more energised than at a similar rally held last November which attracted 40,000 people, but wasn’t sure that quite so many people had turned out for Sunday’s event.

People are already gathering in Cairns – this photograph is courtesy of Andrew Picone.

And Sarah Berry has shared this picture taken at sunrise on the Sunshine Coast. That event kicked off at 5am today and will run through to sunset.

Those attending will walk the length of the coast starting at Sunshine beach in the north and finishing at Kings beach in the south at sunset.

Daniel Rockett, from conservation group WWF Australia, told Guardian Australia that climate change is set to make natural disasters more severe and costly in the coastal zone of south-east Queensland.

Some people are going to great heights to get the climate action message out there. Online activist group GetUp! has posted this picture on Twitter of a banner strung up on the Three Sisters rock formation in the Blue Mountains of NSW.

Here are the People’s Climate March events happening around Australia today.

Melbourne from 11am - State Library of Victoria

Sydney from 12pm - Bicentennial Park, Glebe

Canberra from 10:30am - Chifley Meadows, ANU

Adelaide from 11am - Rundle Park

Brisbane from 11am - Queen’s Park

Perth from 1pm - Russell Square Park

Darwin from 10am - Nightcliff Foreshore

To follow the events on Twiiter, you can use the hashtag: #peoplesclimate

You can also tweet your pics to me @MelissaLDavey and you can follow reporter Oliver Milman who is covering the Melbourne event.

The Adelaide event took place yesterday – here’s a pic of that march from 350.org founder and environmentalist Bill McKibben:

And there are media reports that security is tight in Cairns, with parts of the city in lockdown and an extra 800 police officers, who have additional powers, patrolling the streets in preparation for the march there.

The second and final day of the G20 finance meeting kicks off in Queensland’s tropical north on Sunday.

Supporters of the People’s Climate March are expected to gather in the Cairns CBD on Sunday morning before making their way to the local convention centre where the meeting is being held.

The flagship Australian People’s Climate March is set to begin in Melbourne at 11am. Guardian Australia reporter Oliver Milman will be on the ground covering it for us.

Speakers will include environmentalist Professor Tim Flannery, Greens party leader Senator Christine Milne and Labor environment spokesman Mark Butler.

Looks like Milne is raring to go:

Similar events were held around the country in November last year for a National Day of Climate Action, with organisers GetUp saying 60,000 people participated in rallies, across capital cities and regional towns.

But Sunday’s action is expected to be the biggest yet.

Good morning and welcome to live blog coverage of the biggest global march for action on climate change in history – the ‘People’s Climate March’.

Events are happening all over the world and we’ll bring you coverage of as many of them as we can, with our reporters covering events in Australia, London and New York.

The action comes as world leaders prepare to meet for the UN’s emergency Climate Change Summit in New York on Monday.

US president Barack Obama, UK prime minister David Cameron, UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon and 125 heads of state will attend that summit — but Australian prime minister Tony Abbott will not be there despite heading to a UN Security Council meeting in New York the next day.

Abbott attracted criticism on social media following the news.

You can read this piece from the Guardian on 20 high-profile personalities attending the People’s Climate March and their reasons for taking part. Ban says:

Action on climate change is urgent. The more we delay, the more we will pay in lives and in money. I will link arms with those marching for climate action. We stand with them on the right side of this key issue for our common future.

Event organisers hope to kick-start public action in the lead-up to the Paris climate talks in December 2015.