A man dressed as a tree walks on stilts past the Houses of Parliament at the environmental event ‘The Big One’ to coincide with “Earth Day”, in London, April 22, 2023.
Kevin Coombs | Reuters
Climate change campaigners gathered outside UK parliament ahead of Earth Day to call for action on global warming, while volunteers around the world prepared to plant trees and clean up trash to mark the 54th annual environmental celebration.
This year’s Earth Day, officially on Saturday, follows weeks of extreme weather with record-breaking temperatures in Thailand and a scorching heatwave in India, where at least 13 people died from heatstroke in Thailand. a ceremony last weekend.
Climate scientists have warned average global temperatures could reach all-time highs in 2023 or 2024.
Pope Francis, who has supported green causes since his election in 2013, urged people to take care of the environment.
“The Book of Genesis tells us that God has entrusted mankind with the stewardship of creation (Genesis 2:15). Therefore, caring for the Earth is a moral obligation to all. men and women as children of God #EarthDay,” he tweeted Saturday.
Areeba Hamid, co-chief executive officer of Greenpeace UK, said on Friday as climate change activists took to the streets outside parliament in London, some were dressed in green and painted in colour. green.
Hamid said now, when she visits her hometown of Delhi, it feels like “putting her head in the oven” and the 2022 heatwave in London is like “a dark movie”.
“We can’t afford that anymore.”
Activists led by the group Extinction Rebellion gathered in London to launch a four-day action, called “The Big One”, to coincide with Earth Day.
About 30,000 people have signed up for the family-friendly rallies and marches, marking a shift in strategy by a group known for its disruptive tactics, including blocking roads, throwing paint and banging broken window.
Cleaning and rituals
Globally, there’s a flurry of activity ahead of Earth Day, with events planned in Rome and Boston and major cleanup campaigns at Dal Lake in India’s Srinagar and storm-hit Cape Coral public in Florida.
In Peru, shamans on Friday made offerings to “Pachamama,” or Mother Earth. Holding yellow flowers and rattles, the magicians circled the globe made of papyrus as they performed the cleansing ritual.
The ancestral rituals – which have their roots in Peru’s indigenous cultures – are performed to thank the Earth and lift up the earth, said Walter Alarcon, president of the Peruvian International Organization for Healing Magicians. awareness of this planet.
In San Francisco on Friday, dozens of protesters danced, marched and chanted in the streets as they called on California Governor Gavin Newsom to reduce the state’s use of fossil fuels. In Washington on Saturday, just before the storms began to hit, the Climate Justice Coalition marched calling for an end to the fossil fuel era, along with a brass jazz band.
Earlier in the week, US President Joe Biden pledged to increase funding to help developing countries fight climate change and limit deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest during a meeting with top leaders. world. At home, he has ordered several new measures to protect heavily polluted communities, including the creation of a new White House environmental justice office and a national strategy to prevent plastic pollution.
Governments have fallen short of commitments made in the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit climate warming by phasing out fossil fuels, amid crises including COVID-19, the invasion Russia into Ukraine, food shortages and strained relations between China and the United States, the top two greenhouse gas emitters.
A report by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says the planet is on track to warm more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times – a key threshold leading to the impacts are even more damaging – from 2030 to 2035.
“There is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to ensure a livable and sustainable future for all,” the IPCC said. “The choices and actions made this decade will have an impact now and for thousands of years.”
