The Climate Strike march in Sydney. © Marcus Coblyn / Greenpeace

The Amazon is burning, ice caps and glaciers are melting, our access to food and water is under threat. The inescapable truth is that we’re in a climate emergency – but there is also hope and there’s something every one of us can do.

It’s time to get involved. 

Throughout this month, we will be updating this live blog to keep you up to date on what’s happening around the world and what you can do to help.

27 September

In the second wave of the two student-led climate strikes this month (September 20 and 27), people again hit the streets to demand action on climate change. Across the two days, an estimated 7.6 million people went out in a show of unprecedented action for the climate! 

#GlobalClimateStrikes Wrap Up

“We want climate justice, we want change, this is our future.” Youth activists are demanding action on #ClimateAction for a future and led millions into the streets for #GlobalClimateStrikes again on Friday ✊Find a future event near you >> http://FridaysForFuture.org/join

Posted by Greenpeace International on Sunday, September 29, 2019

 

In Santiago, Chile, as part of the global Earth Strike on September 27, an estimated 100,000 people gathered ahead of the UN climate talks (COP25) in December. With this show of force for a better planet, national leaders have been put on notice: act now!

25 September

New IPCC report shows critical need for accelerated climate action and oceans protection

The launch of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) special report on the Ocean and Cryosphere, highlights the need for governments to urgently scale up and accelerate efforts to address the climate emergency and protect the world’s oceans. The science is both chilling and compelling, revealing that the impacts of human-made carbon emissions on our oceans are on a much larger scale and happening way faster than predicted.

Lebanon graffiti artists join Climate Strikes

Greenpeace in Lebanon collaborated with a Lebanese graffiti group, Ashekman, to create a mural that helps give a higher visibility of the climate movement in Lebanon. The small but BRAVE group of strikers joined us in revealing the mural, and took part of the video summary.

Please share their video

23 September

After Greta Thunberg’s raw and unvarnished opening plea to leaders at the UN Secretary-General’s Climate Action Summit in New York, Greenpeace International Executive Director Jennifer Morgan said: “There is no longer anywhere for leaders to hide, we the people are watching you”.

On the same day, Greenpeace USA activists in New York protested with a moving billboard against the arrival of Brazilian President Bolsonaro, who will speak at the UN to try and convince the world he cares about forests while the Amazon still burns. 

And as the Arctic sea ice melts to its second lowest extent on record, hope is on the horizon. This November we are taking Arctic oil to court. Add your name and be part of the evidence we will present in court.

Greenpeace UK climbers unfurl two giant banners from Burger King’s iconic restaurant in London’s Leicester Square to denounce the fast-food giant’s links to Amazon fires and deforestation. Two 10 by 6 metre banners reading “Fast Food Fries Forests” and “Burger King Flame Grilling the Amazon” covered the whole facade of the building. The Greenpeace protest takes place on the fifth anniversary of the New York declaration on forests – an agreement to end deforestation signed by dozens of governments and corporations in 2014.

20 September

Greenpeace Philippines activists blockaded the entrance to the refinery of fossil fuel giant Shell in Batangas, south of Manila to sound the alarm for the climate emergency. The action challenges fossil fuel companies to show accountability for their role in the climate crisis, heed the call of climate-impacted communities for justice, and start a rapid and just transition to phase out fossil fuels. The blockade consisted of eight activists, who climbed on top of one of the facility’s silos and unfurled a banner with the words ‘Shell, stop burning our future’.

20 September 

The biggest mass mobilisation for the climate that the world has ever seen. Millions of people around the world are striking from school or work to demand urgent measures to stop the climate crisis. Some things are worth breaking the rules for. The tragedy in the Bahamas, the receding Arctic sea ice, or the forest fires raging across the world demand our response. The urgency to act has never been more dire. Everyone one of us must get out and do whatever we can; join the strikes and stand in solidarity with each other.

19 September

As the Amazon fires continue to burn, consumer companies will next week gather in New York City to “celebrate” their broken promises to end deforestation. Leading global brands such as Unilever, Mondelez and Nestlé committed in 2010 and again in 2014 to eliminate deforestation by 2020 – by virtue of membership to the Consumer Goods Forum (CGF), as signatories to the New York Declaration on Forests (NYDF), or via their own procurement policies. Details of how companies continue to fuel climate change through deforestation, and related New York Climate Week events, can be found in Greenpeace USA’s media briefing.

18 September 

More than 200 representatives of Indigenous Peoples, workers, academics, environmental and human rights groups adopted a landmark declaration calling on governments and corporations to urgently tackle the climate emergency in order to ensure the survival of humanity.

Gathered for the Peoples’ Summit on Climate, Rights and Human Survival in New York, their goal is to unleash new power, energy, and resources to supercharge a connected, diverse, and action-oriented mass movement to overcome the climate crisis, by putting people and basic human rights at the core of its solutions.

16 -20 September

Climate impacted communities stage solo protests at Shell’s headquarters in the Philippines demanding climate justice. On day one, Joanna Sustento, a super-typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) survivor, called on Shell, one of the 47 biggest investor-owned climate polluting corporations, to “face the people.” She leaves a letter for Shell, and a photo of her three year old nephew, Tarin, who has been missing since Typhoon Haiyan devastated parts of the country in 2013.

10-14 September

Ahead of the International Motor Show in Frankfurt, Greenpeace Germany released a report revealing the carbon footprint of the global car industry, equalling to 9% of annual global greenhouse gas emissions in 2018 and exceeding the greenhouse gas emissions of the EU as a whole!

Two days later, during Chancellor Merkel‘s walk through the auto show, Greenpeace activists protested against greenwashing car companies by standing on cars with banners reading “Climate killer“. Three out of four newly presented cars at the show still use combustion engines!

Breaking: we just disrupted VW's PR stunt with Angela Merkel. The cars VW produced in 2018 emit more over their life cycle than Australia emits in a year. This has to stop.

Posted by People vs. Oil on Thursday, September 12, 2019

Then Greenpeace and other NGOs supported a mass bike ride and protest march outside the International Motor Show where 25,0000 people gathered to call for priority for pedestrians, cyclists, and better public transport and the immediate phase-out of the internal combustion engine.

13-15 September

In Mexico and Brazil, cyclists took to the streets to call for car-free cities.

12 September

22 Greenpeace USA climbers formed a blockade hanging from the Fred Hartman Bridge in Baytown, Texas, shutting down the largest fossil fuel thoroughfare in the United States ahead of the third Democratic primary debate in nearby Houston.

The sun is setting on the age of oil

The sun is setting on the age of oil — another world is possible, one that is green, peaceful, and just. Last week, Greenpeace USA activists made this statement to the world when they blocked the largest fossil fuel thoroughfare in the US for 18 hours.Tomorrow we all have an opportunity to make a statement about the future we want to see. Use your voice and #StrikeWithUs >> fridayforfuture.org/join

Posted by Greenpeace International on Thursday, September 19, 2019

 

11 September 

At this year’s opening of the Swedish parliament, activists hang a 100 meter long banner outside the Swedish parliament building with one important message: The time for failures and excuses is long gone. The banner replicates exactly what the county’s current prime minister, Stefan Löfven, said five years ago but has failed to follow up with action.

Meanwhile in the Netherlands, activists unfurled another giant banner at Schiphol airport demanding climate action: “Crash landing for the climate”. They handed out flyers to stop the expansion of aviation.

Climate Emergency Action at Swedish Parliament in Stockholm. © Jana Eriksson / Greenpeace

Banner outside Swedish Parliament.

10 -11 September

In Poland, activists twice prevented the unloading of an imported coal shipment at the port of Gdansk. Greenpeace flagship the Rainbow Warrior stopped the arrival of the shipment, as activists painted the slogan ‘Poland Beyond Coal 2030’ on the side of the ship’s hull, as well as displaying banners saying ‘No Future in Coal’. In a second protest, activists climbed the cranes at the Gdansk terminal to halt the unloading of the same coal shipment at the port.

Greenpeace is calling on the EU to achieve total decarbonisation by 2040 and to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 65% by 2030. Phasing out coal by 2030 is a key milestone in this transition.

Activists Stop Coal Import to Poland. © Rafal Wojczal / Greenpeace

Activists stop the import of coal to the Polish port of Gdansk.

 

4 September 

As fires continue to ravage the Amazon, Greenpeace International  launched a campaign asking fast food giants Burger King, McDonald’s and KFC to take a stand against Brazil President Bolsonaro’s Amazon destruction and reject products linked to environmental destruction in the Amazon and across Brazil.

31 August

Greenpeace New Zealand hosted peaceful civil disobedience training with grassroots movements and students. Already, protesters have been coming together in mass mobilisations against Austrian oil giant OMV,  who want to profit from climate destruction by exploratoring oil and gas drilling off New Zealand’s coast.

Aaron Gray-Block is the global climate political communications lead with Greenpeace International