Thousands of people are demonstrating across Europe on Saturday to urge leaders to make the fight against climate change a priority.
Sixty marches were organised across the Old Continent on Saturday with the vast majority taking place in France.
People rallied under the "Il est encore temps" (There is still time) hashtag with some highlighting on social media that the day's weather, unusually warm for the season, was proof action is needed.
"Today we march for the climate, it's October 13: it's 30 degrees celsius...It all makes sense!," Jerome Masegosa tweeted.
Antoine Le Tertre, who took part in the rally in Angers, in north-west France, posted a picture of the procession under a bright, shining sun.
"An opportunity to remind that the consequences of climate change are already tangible. We have to urge public powers to intensify their policies to preserve our planet," he posted on Twitter alongside the picture.
The rallies come a week after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — an international body created by the United Nations and the World Meteorological Organization — warned that "rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society" were needed to limit global warming to 1.5 degree celsius above pre-industrial levels.
"The report highlights a number of climate change impacts that could be avoided by limiting global warming to 1.5ºC compared to 2ºC, or more. For instance, by 2100, the global sea level rise would be 10 cm lower with global warming of 1.5°C compared with 2°C," the IPCC said in a statement.
A similar march was organised last month in the French capital after the country's then-ecology minister, Nicolas Hulot, caught the government off-guard by resigning on live radio. The march was then attended by 18,000 to 50,000 people according to police and organisers respectively.
Andy Battentier, co-organiser of the march in Paris told Europe 1 radio on Saturday that the mobilisation is a way "to maintain pressure".
"Our ultimate aim is that these problems are taken care of, seriously. It's what Nicolas Hulot called for when he resigned. He said that there was a big problem and that he couldn't understand why these things always remained in the background.
"How do you want to have politics if there is no environment where humans can live? So it must become the number one question," Battentier added.
Khanthulhu on October 13rd, 2018 at 22:51 UTC »
If you want to know what we can actually do about climate change, there's a fantastic little book called Drawdown which lays out 100 different technologies, strategies, and techniques that can be used to combat climate change including their costs, savings, and impact.
They did a ton of leg work to compile the book and when you look through it things feel a lot less dire.
Although some of the solutions require sacrifice, like cutting down on meat consumption, many of them are things we should be doing anyways because they would save us money. Things like fixing leaky pipes, using water more efficiently, and farming more sustainably.
We need people to take this seriously and be informed. People should understand that the outlook is dire, but they should also understand that it's a problem that's solvable.
RawneyVerm on October 13rd, 2018 at 22:38 UTC »
Well, there was a massive demontration in Hambach Forest, in Germany, about a week ago where 50000 people attended. A small detachment of about 8000 protesters took over the forest peacefully, as the police literally ran out of cops. Also, that protest was coupled with a judicial resolution that protects the forest for at least another 2 years, and probably forever, lost by the massive coal and power corporation RWI.
Some of my friends were there, it was amazing. The tide is changing in the climate change fight, at least in Europe. Big actions do matter, they acomplish more than you think. Instead of lamenting that it was "just" a few thousand, let's paint our banners and join them to make millions, not thousands.
Have hope, my friends!
LaceTheSpaceRace on October 13rd, 2018 at 20:53 UTC »
‘The Old Continent’.
Could just call it Europe. Uses less letters too.