Hundreds protest Wall Street over climate change
New York (AFP) - Hundreds of protesters Monday accused Wall Street of financing climate change, marching through Manhattan's financial district dressed in blue and armed with placards.
The protest came a day after tens of thousands rallied around the world for urgent action to stop climate change and a day before UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon hosts a key summit on climate change.
Organizers of Monday's "Flood Wall Street" demonstration said an estimated 3,000 people took part, which a spokeswoman characterized as "well over what we were expecting."
"Yesterday was about building a movement and demonstrating how many people were involved, and today is about pointing fingers at those responsible," said spokeswoman Bessie Schwarz.
The demonstrators were accompanied by a 15-foot inflatable carbon bubble and a 300-foot banner unfurled to read Flood Wall Street, she said.
The organizers said the protest was called "to confront the root cause of the climate crisis -- an economic system based on exploiting frontline communities, workers and natural resources."
Private institutions, individuals and local governments worth a total of more than $50 billion of assets announced in New York on Monday that they were divesting from fossil fuels.
On Tuesday, world leaders including US President Barack Obama hold a summit on climate change at the United Nations.
The summit aims to pave the way for a global agreement on fighting climate change -- a successor to the Kyoto Protocol -- during a conference in late 2015 in Paris.
