Even with protests banned in Paris ahead of the United Nation's COP21 climate talks, about 2300 climate protests sent a global message to leaders at the talks.
Hundreds of thousands of people joined climate change protests, marches and other events around the world on November 29 to send a message to leaders on the eve of COP21 that the world is waiting for climate change action. The 2300 climate actions included 175 countries.
In Paris, where all protests were banned in the wake of the deadly November 13 attacks, about 10,000 people joined hands in a huge human chain spanning the planned 3.2 kilometre route of the climate march that was intended to be the epicentre of November 29's climate action.
People also laid about 20,000 pairs of shoes in Paris' Place de La Republique in memory of the 130 victims who died in the November 13 attacks that prompted France's protest ban. The shoes also marked a massive symbolic march in light of the ban.
Despite widespread calls for France to lift the ban, and not silence demonstrators in the name of security, activists were forced to call off planned actions and get creative in Paris.
Meanwhile, huge rallies in other cities amounted to what some say could be the largest climate action in history. The actions follow a series of other events in recent days leading up to COP21.
Around the globe, popular slogans included 鈥淪ystem change not climate change鈥, 鈥淭here is no Planet B鈥 and calls for world leaders to take the urgency of climate change seriously during the Paris talks.
World leaders will sign a global climate deal at COP21, which began on November 30 and ends on December 11. Social movements are fighting for climate justice to be on the global agenda.
[Abridged from TeleSUR English.]
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