Climate Change Prompts Protests, is Action to Follow?

Climate change brings with it searing wildfires, unbearable drought, rising seas and more deadly tornadoes, threatening not just entire species and ecosystems but human well being as well. And while a host of studies have recently come out warning of these imminent problems unless drastic measures are taken, the world seems to still be two steps behind. So environmentalists have taken to the New York City streets this week in protest against world leaders who they believe have lost sight of their vows to take action against climate change, hopefully creating enough inertia to renew their efforts.

The protests precede the United Nation's (UN) Climate Summit 2014, during which 120 world leaders will convene Tuesday to hopefully restore political will for a new global climate treaty by the end of 2015.

But first, the planet-saving pomp started this past Sunday when environmentalists numbering in the thousands flooded New York City streets in what is being billed as the largest march ever on global warming, according to The Associated Press (AP). Climatologists, CEOs and celebrities, including Leonardo DiCaprio, will appear at a string of events as part of New York's annual climate week. DiCaprio was just officially cast as the UN's climate change representative last week, appointed the task of convincing world leaders of fighting for a healthier planet and sustainable economic growth.

"Climate change is not a far-off problem. It is happening now and is having very real consequences on people's lives," wrote the UN's Climate Summit website.

"There is no 'Plan B' for action as there is no 'Planet B,'" Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who will be heading this week's Climate Summit, said during the march.

Oh the Angry Go Marching In...

Perhaps more importantly than DiCaprio, among the 300,000 demonstrators at the People's Climate March were the "people first and most impacted" by climate change. This includes residents of the Marshall Islands, where the Pacific Ocean's encroaching waters are wiping away beaches and poisoning drinking water. Crops are shriveling amid persistent drought, and massive floods have forced thousands of people from their homes.

"For us, climate change is not a distant threat," Tony A. deBrum, foreign affairs minister of the Marshall Islands, told The New York Times. "Life is quickly becoming like living in a war zone."

For people living in the Marshall Islands, as well as in other parts of the world, climate change has already arrived. The most vulnerable communities, according to an analysis from Yale and George Mason University, includes Hispanics, African Americans, and other racial and ethnic groups, as they are most likely to experience heat waves, extreme weather events and environmental degradation. The People's Climate March is part of a worldwide campaign to persuade global leaders to act decisively on the issue and prevent further devastating loss.

Many of these marchers, who dressed in costume and filed through Manhattan's West Side, believe their actions are the only way to prompt meaningful action among government officials.

"It's important because there's a huge gap between the action our survival requires...and the action our Government are willing to take," on climate change, Ricken Patel, Executive Director of the march organizers Avaaz, told the UN News Centre. "The street is where we close that gap."

Despite certain action, like President Barack Obama's plan to slash coal pollution in the United States 30 percent by 2030, the world still doesn't seem any closer to reaching its climate goals. A report released this Sunday called the Global Carbon Project announced that it's highly unlikely we'll limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), due to concentration of greenhouse gases.

Not only are we not reducing our impact on global warming, but we in fact seem to be making it worse. Nature World News recently reported that with carbon dioxide levels rising in the atmosphere at its fastest rate in three decades, greenhouse gas levels reached a record high in 2013, according to a new UN report.

"We are running out of time," World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Michel Jarraud said in a statement. "Carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere for many hundreds of years and in the ocean for even longer. Past, present and future CO2 emissions will have a cumulative impact on both global warming and ocean acidification. The laws of physics are non-negotiable."

Time for Action?

Yet expectations for the summit meeting on Tuesday are low, with no sign of any political breakthrough that would lead to more ambitious efforts.

"Ultimately, we are going to need much more ambitious, concerted government action and government policies," Nat Keohane, of the Environmental Defense Fund, told the AP. "This summit is not going to be one fell swoop where we are going to announce all those policies."

Protesters who marched in NYC's financial district Monday, on the heels of the People's Climate March, feel that the people of Wall Street are to blame for inaction up to this point.

"Marching is wonderful but to really change things we really need to change things," Kai Sanburn, who participated in Flood Wall Street, told Reuters. "The action here against Wall Street is really expressive of the feeling that corporations and capitalism no longer serve people."

Aside from two arrests after protestors tried to cross a police barricade, the demonstration was a peaceful one, merely stopping traffic on Broadway south of the New York Stock Exchange. Flood Wall Street organizers said they hope Monday's action will draw a link between economic policies and the environment.

Though the summit, which has not met for five years, is expected to jumpstart a series of much publicized initiatives and partnerships. For instance, commitments to combat deforestation, clean up agriculture, slash methane leaks and make freight shipments greener will be among the topics discussed.

In the weeks leading up to the summit, not only were levels of carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas, more than in any year since 1984, but also the months of May, June and August were the warmest of any on record in the United States.

"We're in a car heading toward a cliff, and while we're talking about how important it is that we put on the brakes, the car is meanwhile accelerating," said University of California Irvine scientist Steve Davis.

Now enough talk, time for action.