This September, Temple Place in London hosted the starting line of the biggest march against climate change that this country has seen. Taking place two days ahead of the UN Climate Summit in New York, the People’s Climate March united a staggering 310,000 people across the globe in an attempt to urge the world’s most powerful leaders to take action on climate change.
I was one of the fortunate 40,000 to be able to walk alongside the likes of Emma Thompson and Vivienne Westwood in London and the atmosphere was phenomenal. Groups from Greenpeace to Healthy Planet UK, Friends of the Earth to Fill Bellies not Bins turned up to support the march, alongside polar bears, carnival queens and environmentalists from every age group.
Throughout the day marchers bombarded politicians on twitter using the hashtag #fortheloveof and chanting, singing and African drums were beat all the way past Downing Street and Westminster. The success of the Summit itself was debatable, but what is undeniable is the vast number of people and huge amount of media coverage that the climate change negotiations managed to attract from the 2,500 individual events spread across the continents. That, if anything, is a success story in itself.
The explosion of photos and tweets alone is remarkable, and as yet there has been no end to the streams of pictures appearing online of all sorts of costumes, climate marchers and campaign slogans. For the best photos of the day I would recommend checking out the Guardian’s feature, or the official facebook event page for an inspiring number of personal stories.
For the latest news in climate change negotiations, follow @Climate2014live for live updates on twitter, as well as our own twitter feed @ericgroup.
