Thousands of people were marching through Melbourne’s CBD on Friday evening in what is expected to the largest in a series of climate change protests being held throughout Australia over the weekend.
They gathered in front of the state library and, as the lawns filled with protesters putting finishing touches on their placards, they took to the surrounding roads just in time for peak hour.
Environmentalists, unionists, religious organisations, youth groups, doctors, Indigenous organisations, and people from the aid and development sector were part of the crowd. Police estimates put the crowd numbers by the end of the night at about 40,000, but organisers said 60,000 turned out for the event.
Marching bands and Indigenous dancers weaved among them, undeterred by the blustery weather.
Climate change marches will also take place throughout the world over the weekend, to call for a transition to 100% clean energy and an end to burning fossil fuels, as Paris prepares to host the United Nations climate summit next month.
The climate change campaign manager at the Australian Conservation Foundation, Victoria McKenzie-McHarg, was among the Melbourne protesters and told Guardian Australia the series of marches would prove a crucial moment in the climate movement.
“By coming together in this way, we are showing that we have strong expectations for action, and that we expect more from our leaders, who we believe need to get on to the job of creating a cleaner, better future,” she said.
“The prime minister [Malcolm Turnbull] seems to have recognised opportunities with new clean technologies, but there has been no improvement in government policy. This government has supported one of the largest coal mines in Australia, Adani, to go ahead, and is taking our old and completely inadequate pollution reduction targets to the Paris negotiations.
“We need to see much stronger targets from the government in line with limiting global warming to less than 1.5 degrees.”
Amelia Telford, the national director of the SEED Indigenous Youth Climate Network, said the fossil fuel industry was devastating Indigenous Australian culture.
“The loss of Aboriginal land, cultures and livelihoods is at the core of the climate crisis, with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people forced off our land due to extractive industries that fuel climate change, and increasingly by the devastating impacts of sea level rise, drought and reduced access to clean water,” she said.
It was something Sixta Mambor, from West Papua, had seen Indigenous people in her country suffer from. She joined the Victorian protesters to highlight their plight.
“Papua has among the highest amount of mining in the world,” she said.
“The waste from the mining is going into the rivers and contaminating the water that people use for cooking and daily living, the water that children swim in. Rio Tinto is taking everything, and are giving nothing back to the Indigenous people to compensate.”
On Saturday, marches will be held in the Domain in Queen’s Park in Brisbane from 9.30am, and Stokes Hill Wharf in Darwin from 4.30pm On Sunday, people will rally at the Domain in Sydney from 12.30pm, Ester Lipman Gardens in Adelaide from 11am, Wellington Square in Perth from 1pm, Parliament Lawns in Hobart from 1pm and Parliament Lawns in Canberra from noon.
Marches are also being held in dozens of regional and rural areas.
A similar march was held last September during a global campaign where hundreds of thousands of people across 150 countries took part in protests on one weekend.
The president of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, Professor Nick Talley, urged doctors to join the marches.
The college co-ordinates the group Doctors for Climate Action, a campaign led by physicians that highlights the impact of climate change on health. Many from the group could be seen at the Melbourne rally.
“Physicians want the community and our leaders to recognise that the risks to personal health from climate change are significant, particularly among the vulnerable, including children, the elderly and those suffering with chronic illnesses,” Talley said.
“We are joining with the community at people’s climate marches to call for leaders to commit to real action to combat the health impacts of climate change.”
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