Organisers estimate that around 200 people attended the People’s Climate March at Exchange Square in Central on Sunday. The mainly expatriate participants included many families with small children, most of whom were wearing t-shirts, featuring a green heart and gas masks handed out by the organisers.
Participants wearing the t-shirts and masks supplied by private donors
The march is part of a worldwide event being billed as the biggest global march for climate change in history. Coordinated by numerous international and local environmental groups, it includes 2,800 events happening in over 160 countries all over the world ahead of the United Nations’ Climate Summit at their New York headquarters on Monday. In New York alone 400,000 people took part in the march.
A group photo of all the participants
Due to logistic constraints, there was not an actual march in Hong Kong, only a demonstration to raise awareness and to collect signatures for a petition urging the UN to work to shift the world to 100 percent clean energy by 2050. It’s no small request, but desperate times call for desperate measures. The petition, which has collected over two million signatures, was created by Avaaz.org, an online international advocacy platform and one of the organisations spearheading the march.
March participants raise their fists in solidarity
Paul Zimmerman, the district councillor for the Southern District, Robert Gibson, an adjunct professor at CUHK, and Ciara Shannon, a local environmentalist, gave short speeches at the event, which lasted roughly 45 minutes.
Many wielded handmade signs
Hong Kong’s rally was organised in just a week and a half by Sam Ingliss, a 22-year-old Brit born and raised in Hong Kong who was recruited by Avaaz.org. “It’s an opportunity for [environmental groups] to unite, which is so important,” says Ingliss.
Hear from some of the participants themselves in the video below, made by Cesar Harada, a Hong Kong-based ocean robotics engineer and environmental educator:
Sources: The Guardian, TIME
Photos: Laurel Chor/Coconuts Hong Kong
