In the early afternoon on September 21, about 400,000 people congregated in the streets of New York City for the People’s Climate March. The movement was a call to action for world leaders who were in New York attending the “Climate Summit Meeting 2014” at the United Nations. According to the event’s organizers, groups from all 50 states and from around the world were marching together in the city. In addition, more than 2,500 partner events were held around the world in solidarity with the New York marchers.
The event sought to draw attention to the need for transformative political action to abate the global impacts of climate change. Both the People’s Climate March and the UN Summit focused on the development of strategies to tax and reduce carbon emissions as part of a commitment to keep global temperature increases to less than two degrees Celsius: the threshold required for limiting the dangerous effects of human-induced climate change.
These photographs are a record of widespread recognition of the need for greater environmental consciousness, and of the power of individuals to raise political awareness for the cause. It was this record-breaking demonstration and the hundreds of thousands of voices propelling it that prompted UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon to claim: “We are not here to talk. We are here to make history.”
Photography by Tyler Daelemans.
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