Marching for action on climate change

 Rallies are being organised across Portugal and around the world this weekend to promote action rather than words in tackling the problem of climate change.

The international mobilisation effort “to build a cleaner, fairer, safer world” is being staged to coincide with the United Nations summit meeting on climate change in New York.

The summit is the first time world leaders have sat down to discuss the problem – some say the biggest in history - since the summit in Copenhagen five years ago. Little has been achieved since then to stop the climate situation worsening.

The biggest street marches, some perhaps involving hundreds of thousands, will take place in New York and other cities including London, Berlin, Paris, Delhi, Rio and Melbourne. Groups large and small are expected to gather in Lisbon, Porto and at other locations in Portugal, such as Faro, Tavira and Silves in the Algarve, and in the Azores.

The various organisers hope that globally it will be the biggest climate change mobilisation ever. Nearly 400,000 people have signed up on an Avaaz digital site to say they will be taking part.

Greenpeace, Oxfam and the World Wildlife Fund are among the many organisations supporting the effort to get world leaders to recognise the groundswell of public opinion. 

The widespread belief is that the world can be powered entirely by renewable energy and make economies more sustainable. The transition to a clean energy future would among other things create millions of new jobs.

Activists say they want world leaders, without any further delay, “to create a world with an economy that works for people and the planet.”

Put simply, according to Avaaz campaigners, “we need to break free from the shackles of the fossil fuel industry in order to address the climate crisis. We’re already seeing the devastating impacts of climate change around the world, with the poorest and most vulnerable being the hardest hit.

“There can be no climate justice without economic justice, but there won’t be any economic justice without facing up to our climate reality.”

As previously reported in Portugal Newswatch, one of the messages from top scientists attending an international conference on climate change in Lisbon was that the world must expect increasing deluges, droughts, firestorms, landslides, avalanches, gales and tornadoes.

It is predicted that the Mediterranean could rise by half a metre by 2050 and wipe out coastal communities. Southern Europe generally is likely to get hotter and dry up. The farming of fruits, cereals and vegetables in southern Iberia may have to be abandoned; tropical species of mosquitoes may move north bringing with them diseases such as malaria and encephalitis.

In Portugal's southernmost region an irreversible process of desertification may be already underway. It could become as dry as the Sahara countries of North Africa.
     The message from marchers this weekend is that global action must be taken now to stop this sort of thing happening.

To help find a climate change march near you on Sunday (21^st):  https://secure.avaaz.org/en/event/climate/