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SHARM EL-Hundreds of activists called on industrialized nations to pay for the impact of climate change and to speed up the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy on Saturday in the largest protest yet at the U.N. climate summit in Egypt.
Protests have mostly been muted at the conference, known as COP27, which is taking place in the seaside resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. Activists blamed high cost of travel, accommodation and restrictions in the isolated city for limiting numbers of demonstrators.
The protesters marched through the conference’s ‘Blue Zone,’ which is considered a U.N. territory and ruled by international law. They chanted, sang, and danced in an area not far from where climate talks and negotiations are taking place. The protests came at the end of the first week of the two-week summit, when typically protest action at climate summits is at its biggest.
“Pay for loss and damage now,” said Friday Nbani, a Nigerian environmental activist who was leading a group of African protesters. Many protesters, alongside several vulnerable countries, have called for ‘loss and damage’ payments, or financing to help pay for climate-related harms, to be central to negotiations. “Africa is crying, and its people are dying,” Nbani said.
Protesters also called for drastic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions being pumped into the atmosphere.
