Global rallies call for climate change action

SYDNEY: Tens of thousands marched across Australia Sunday on a third day of worldwide rallies as pressure mounts on global leaders to strike a pact on cutting greenhouse gases at crucial talks in Paris.
Some 150 leaders including US President Barack Obama, China's Xi Jinping, India's Narendra Modi and Russia's Vladimir Putin will attend the start Monday of the UN conference, tasked with reaching the first truly universal climate pact.
The goal is to limit average global warming to two degrees Celsius, perhaps less, over pre-Industrial Revolution levels by curbing fossil fuel emissions blamed for climate change.
Rallies demanding curbs to carbon pollution have been growing since Friday, with marches across Australia Sunday kickstarting a final day of people-powered protest.
Similar events were planned for Rio de Janeiro, New York and Mexico City, while 1,000 braved rain in Seoul, with scientists warning of superstorms, drought and rising sea levels swamping vast areas if concrete action is not taken.
"There is no Planet B," said one placard in Sydney where 45,000 people converged, while another read: "Solidarity on a global scale".
"There's nothing more important that I can be doing at the moment than addressing climate change," said Kate Charlesworth, a doctor and Sydney mother.
"In 10 years' time our children are going to say, 'Mum, did you know about this? What was everyone doing?"
A large protest in Melbourne on Friday kick-started the global campaign, with rallies on Saturday from New Zealand to the Philippines, Bangladesh, Japan, South Africa and Britain.
A march of some 5,000 people in Adelaide on Sunday focused on the global impact which climate change has on health, food security and development, particularly among the world's poorest.
"Those who did the least to cause the problem are feeling the impacts first and hardest, like our sisters and brothers in the Pacific," said Judee Adams, a community campaigner with Oxfam.
Many low-lying Pacific nations such as Kiribati, Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands fear they could disappear beneath the waves completely as sea levels rise.
The message to curb global warming and help poor countries deal with climate change was hammered home by religious leaders in Paris, who delivered petitions with almost 1.8 million signatures from people around the world.
On the eve of Saturday's protests, French President Francois Hollande, host of the Nov 30-Dec 11 talks, warned of obstacles ahead for the 195 nations seeking new limits on heat-trapping gas emissions from 2020.
"Man is the worst enemy of man. We can see it with terrorism," said Hollande.
The French leader called for "a binding agreement, a universal agreement, one that is ambitious." — AFP