Thousands march in London to call for "urgent" climate action June 23, 2024
- Ana Cunha-Busch
- Jun 22, 2024
- 3 min read
By AFP - Agence France Presse
Thousands march in London to call for "urgent" climate action
Thousands of protesters from across the UK marched through central London on Saturday to call for "urgent political action" on nature.
The "Restore Nature Now" march was attended by around 350 charities, from protest groups such as Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion to more traditional organizations such as the National Trust and WWF.
People came from "all over the UK", according to one demonstrator, with a list of demands that included making "polluters pay" and improving support for farmers in a "more climate-friendly agricultural budget".
The march also called for a bill on environmental rights to establish the right to a healthy environment in the next parliament, after the general elections next month.
Protesters lined one side of Hyde Park in the British capital, marching from Downing Street to Parliament Square, dressed in wildlife-themed costumes and wearing peculiar helmets and masks.
Accompanied by songs, chants of "restore nature now" and more than one drum circle, the demonstrators called for climate change and nature to be prioritized in the election campaign and by the next government.
British actress Emma Thompson led the march, saying her message was for the government to "stop being so deeply, deeply irresponsible".
Thompson told AFP during the march that she couldn't believe the "lack of engagement" from political parties during the ongoing election campaign.
"We're in the eye of the hurricane... Everyone cares about the beauty of our islands and we're losing it very quickly," he added.
TV presenter and wildlife activist Chris Packham joined her at the front of the procession and criticized politicians for "not taking the necessary action quickly enough and widely enough", adding that he was "not very impressed" by the parties' election manifestos.
"So we have to stand up and make sure they understand that we will hold them accountable," he told AFP.
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A protester wanted the water companies to be nationalized by the next government.
Carrying fish cut-outs, Frances Dismore, from a river restoration group, said: "All these cardboard creatures we're carrying today, we've personally found them in our river, so we're very concerned about protecting them."
Dismore added that the river she was campaigning for, the River Lea, in north-east London and eastern England, was "affected by all the problems that affect all the other rivers in England".
Cleaning up rivers and water has been a hot topic in this election, with several sewage spillage scandals in recent years drawing the ire of climate activists.
Earlier in the campaign, the leader of the small Liberal Democrat party fell off a paddle board into a lake to demonstrate the severity of England's sewage crisis.
The opposition Labour Party, which looks set to win power in this election, has promised to end new oil and gas exploration licenses in the North Sea and create a public clean energy company called Great British Energy.
However, Labour leader Keir Starmer has previously been criticized for abandoning a promise to spend £28 billion a year on green infrastructure.
The Conservatives weakened commitments on how they would achieve the UK's net zero emissions target by 2050 by postponing the ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030 to 2050.
For Jane Price, who came with Extinction Rebellion from Stratford-upon-Avon, the timing of the march was a way of saying to the political parties: "We will vote for you if climate and ecology are on your agenda".
"Wherever you look," she added, "not enough is being done."
aks/cw
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