Latest reports suggest that climate protests and rally headlined by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are expected to bring thousands of activists to the streets of New York.
Under the banner March to End Fossil Fuels, protesters will push the Biden administration to take bold steps to phase out fossil fuels. The demonstration will fall days before the United Nations Climate Ambition Summit, which the UN secretary general, António Guterres, has described as a “no nonsense” conference meant to highlight new climate commitments.
Recall that On Friday national security adviser Jake Sullivan said President Biden was not currently scheduled to take part in Wednesday’s UN climate summit.
Biden has been praised by climate activists for last year passing an historic $369bn climate law but also criticized for the approval of one of the largest oil drilling projects in recent decades, the Willow project in Alaska
On Sunday, protesters are expected to demand an end to the approval of new oil and gas projects, a phasing out of fossil fuel drilling on public lands, the declaration of a federal climate emergency and support for workers as polluting industries are phased out – demands that have been endorsed by more than 500 organizations including the NAACP, the Sierra Club and the Sunrise Movement, celebrities such as Jeremy Strong, Edward Norton, Jane Fonda and Mark Ruffalo, and more than 400 scientists.
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In a recent interview, the Democratic congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez spoke about how the climate crisis “does not really care about the political complexities that we very much have to grapple with in our work.
“We can celebrate all of these policies that result in reductions but we also can’t erase them with increased oil and gas production,” Ocasio-Cortez was quoted as saying.
Sunday’s march was organized in large part by youth-led climate groups, including Greta Thunberg’s Fridays for Future movement.
“We are marching to make it clear to President Biden that he is betraying the very youth who helped get him into office in the first place,” Bree Campbell, a 17-year-old organizer with New York City’s Fridays for Our Future chapter, said. “We are marching to make him see us – and to make him act on his promises. We are marching because everyone deserves a clean, healthy, and just future, and ending the era of fossil fuels will help ensure that.”
Story was adapted from the Guardian.
