The People's Climate March, organized by 350.org's Bill McKibben, snaked through Midtown Manhattan on Sunday, drawing tens of thousands who aimed to put pressure on world leaders gathering this week at the U.N.
"We don't expect this will have immediate results here in New York, but we think building a big movement is the only way to get them off the dime," McKibben
told the New Yorker ahead of the march. "We figured we would invite ourselves to come along and try to press them harder than they've been pressed before."
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The Wall Street Journal reported that more than 125 presidents, prime ministers, and heads of state are expected to attend the meeting. The gathering kicks off a series of negotiations seeking to limit carbon emissions that will finish next year in Paris.
Several world leaders from the countries with the highest emissions, however, had said ahead of time that they wouldn't attend. This includes Chinese President Xi Jinping, and India's new Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose countries are the first- and third-largest emitters of carbon dioxide.
Former Vice President Al Gore, actor Leonardo DiCaprio, and climate activist billionaire Tom Steyer attended the march, which was bolstered by groups representing anti-fracking interests, labor unions, animal conservation, etc.
One veteran environmental consultant
told Politico that the march was "a theater game" that sought to provide populist optics to climate issues in an already deep-blue state.
"I just wish the energy you see going into New York, that gets put into the march, was spent marching through precincts in battleground congressional districts and in battleground states," the consultant said.
An oil-industry consultant struck a similar tone, telling the publication, "When Al Gore, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Tom Steyer fly to battleground states to hold public climate marches in the midst of campaign season with their preferred candidates, then we will know they are serious."
Republicans are predicted to gain control of the Senate this November, which is likely to set back a number of issues prioritized by the marchers including EPA regulations and the Keystone XL oil pipeline.
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