Thousands expected to attend New York City march calling for end to fossil fuels – live | Climate crisis

At the march, Eagle Woman/Kandi White, who traveled here from North Dakota with the Indigenous Environmental Network, said: “A lot of our native people are here today because as has been the case for over 500 years, we’ve had to hold the line in the protections of the fight of our earth.

“The resources that we should be most concerned [about] are not oil, coal and gas. They are the air we need to breathe, the water we need to drink.”

Here is what a few youth climate activists and organizers told the Guardian’s fossil fuels and climate reporter Dharna Noor ahead of today’s march:

Bree Campell, a 17-year-old organizer with Fridays for Future NYC, said:

Next year, myself and millions of young people will be newly eligible to vote – and climate is our number one priority.

People are expected to travel from far and wide to attend Sunday’s march.

“As an 11-year-old girl living with asthma in south-west Louisiana, I’ve experienced first-hand the harmful effects of air pollution on my health,” said Kamea Ozane, an 11-year old from Sulphur, Louisiana – part of the notoriously heavily polluted “Cancer Alley” region – who will attend the march with her mother, Roishetta Sibley Ozane.

She added:

Every child deserves clean air to breathe and a future free from the dangers of fossil fuels.

Good morning, blog readers.

Thousands of activists are expected to show up in New York City on Sunday for the march to end fossil fuels. The protest will begin at 1pm ET and a rally headlined by New York’s Democratic representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is expected to begin at 3pm ET.

The demonstration will fall days before the United Nations Climate Ambition Summit, which the UN secretary general, António Guterres, says will focus on on bold new climate pledges.

On Friday, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said President Joe Biden was not currently scheduled to attend the UN climate summit – a decision that is “unacceptable”, said Jean Su, energy justice director at the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the groups organizing the march.

She added:

The time is now for Biden to lead on the world stage, and show he means it when he calls climate change the existential threat to humanity.

More than 650 global climate actions took place earlier this week and more are expected in the coming days. Youth-led organizations, including Greta Thunberg’s Fridays for Future, played leading roles in organizing the mobilizations.

Stay tuned as we bring you the latest updates.