Today, thousands of people took the streets of Durban, South Africa demanding climate action. Trade unionists, churches, young people, farmers, women’s groups and NGOs such as Oxfam all marched from downtown Durban to the entrance of the UN Climate Summit singing, dancing and nosily calling for our leaders to make progress in the final week of talks.
As part of this united movement, I had shivers down my spine, as women who had traveled in the Caravan of Hope from all parts of Africa chanted about the impacts of changing weather patterns on their ability to grow food.
I now feel even more inspired to keep pushing our negotiators and ministers to do all they can to ensure we make progress here at Durban.
Progress that steers the ship back on track to a world that stays below 2 degrees warming.
And progress which delivers a Green Climate Fund that assists poor people deal with the impacts of climate change.
Whilst a global agreement to reduce emissions is unlikely here at Durban, the world can’t wait any longer for further reductions in greenhouse gases and increased flows of finance to developing countries to adapt and mitigate against climate change.
As today’s march showed, people are untied in wanting action on climate change. Now, we need the political will from our government and negotiators.