The People's Climate March is set to take place on Sunday, Sept. 21, as people and businesses in the Big Apple get ready to greet the crowd. As many as 100,000 people are expected to take part in the event. The rally is timed to coincide with the UN Climate Summit, and organizers hope to impress the international body with a demonstration of public support for action.
The United Nations will host over 120 leaders from around the world on Sept. 23. The summit was organized by U.N. Secretary Ban ki-Moon, although the meeting is not part of the formal process of developing an international policy on climate change. Dozens of events are being planned around the city as part of the environmental summit.
"We want to make sure the People's Climate March tells the story of today's climate movement in all its parts - so we're trying something new, and arranging the contingents of the march in a way that helps us thread our many messages together," organizers announced on their Web site.
President Barack Obama will be addressing attendees at the summit. The administration is working to reduce emissions of greenhouse gasses from coal-fired plants for the first time in history, as well as lower the amount of the substances produced by automobiles.
In 2015, international leaders will meet in Paris, in an attempt to draft an agreement between nations to lessen the effects of man-made global climate change. An earlier attempt to draw up such a treaty in 2009 failed when negotiators could not come to terms for a binding treaty. However, leaders at the conference did set a goal of limiting average global temperature rise by 2020 to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above pre-industrial levels. It may already be impossible to stay under that goal.
Both China and the United States have announced that no new target limits for emissions of greenhouse gases will be proposed at the summit. However, the nations are expected to declare new initiatives between public and private groups to reduce methane leaks from the production of natural gas, reduce deforestation and make agriculture and shipping friendlier to the environment.
"This is the final crunch, the product of six months of work to make the People's March a big, beautiful expression of the climate movement," Rachel Schragis, one of the coordinators of the march, said.
Several celebrities and environmental researchers are scheduled to attend the rally. Supporters of international action on global climate change will march from 86th street, west of Central Park in Manhattan, down past Rockefeller Center. The group will then continue down 6th Avenue, and turn onto 42nd Street, before ending at the intersection of 11th Avenue and 34th Street.
