spot_img
27.8 C
Philippines
Friday, March 29, 2024

Pressure over climate change

- Advertisement -

SYDNEY—Tens of thousands marched across Australia Sunday on a third day of worldwide rallies as pressure mounts on global leaders to strike a pact on cutting greenhouse gases at crucial talks in still-shaken Paris.

Some 150 leaders including US President Barack Obama, China’s Xi Jinping, India’s Narendra Modi, and Russia’s Vladimir Putin will attend the start Monday of the UN conference, tasked with reaching the first truly universal climate pact.

The goal is to limit average global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), perhaps less, over pre-Industrial Revolution levels by curbing fossil fuel emissions blamed for climate change.

Healing ceremony. International indigenous leaders gather to perform chants, songs, dances and poetry in a square opposite the Bataclan concert hall on November 29 in Paris as part of a healing ceremony to connect the November 13 Paris attacks and the climate crisis. AFP

Rallies demanding curbs to carbon pollution have been growing since Friday, with marches across Australia Sunday kickstarting a final day of people-powered protest.

Similar events were planned for Rio de Janeiro, New York and Mexico City, while 1,000 braved rain in Seoul, with scientists warning of super storms, drought and rising sea levels swamping vast areas if concrete action is not taken. 

- Advertisement -

“There is no Planet B,” said one placard in Sydney where 45,000 people converged, while another read: “Solidarity on a global scale”.

“There’s nothing more important that I can be doing at the moment than addressing climate change,” said Kate Charlesworth, a doctor and Sydney mother.

“In 10 years’ time our children are going to say, ‘Mum, did you know about this? What was everyone doing?”

A large protest in Melbourne on Friday kick-started the global campaign, with rallies on Saturday from New Zealand to the Philippines, Bangladesh, Japan, South Africa and Britain. 

A march of some 5,000 people in Adelaide on Sunday focused on the global impact which climate change has on health, food security and development, particularly among the world’s poorest.

“Those who did the least to cause the problem are feeling the impacts first and hardest, like our sisters and brothers in the Pacific,” said Judee Adams, a community campaigner with Oxfam.

Many low-lying Pacific nations such as Kiribati, Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands fear they could disappear beneath the waves completely as sea levels rise.

The message to curb global warming and help poor countries deal with climate change was hammered home by religious leaders in Paris, who delivered petitions with almost 1.8 million signatures from people around the world.

In the past week the UN’s weather body said the average global temperature for the year 2015 is set to rise one degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels, halfway towards the Paris conference’s attempted limit.

And analysts say voluntary carbon-curbing pledges submitted by nations to bolster the Paris pact, even if fully adhered to, put Earth on track for warming of three degrees C. 

- Advertisement -

LATEST NEWS

Popular Articles