It’s pay-to-play at the United Nations Climate Ambition Summit taking place on Wednesday, September 20th. UN Secretary-General António Guterres invited world leaders to attend, but only if they come to the table with more ambitious plans to tackle climate change.

Thousands of activists hitting the streets this week have their own ask: for the US, the world’s biggest oil and gas producer, to phase out fossil fuel development. They came from out of state and other countries to march through Manhattan on Sunday and have risked arrest at protests across the city.

Hundreds more events are planned throughout NYC’s Climate Week, which has attracted all kinds of brands — from Big Tech to startups trying to develop new-fangled ways to erase greenhouse gas emissions.

The Verge is on the ground at the summit and this week’s biggest protests and events.

Princess Daazhraii Johnson, a member of the Neets’aii Gwich’in, hasn’t been able to fish at her family’s traditional camp on the Yukon River in Alaska for years. Salmon have dwindled with rising temperatures, a consequence of burning fossil fuels. That’s one reason why Johnson was one of thousands of people who took to the streets in New York over the past 24 hours to demand an end to oil, coal, and gas.

The aim is to put pressure on President Joe Biden and other world leaders gathering in the city this week for the United Nations General Assembly. Notably, Biden isn’t expected to attend the UN Climate Ambition Summit on Wednesday. To participate, governments need to come with “credible, serious and new climate action,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres has said.

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Climate protesters arrested outside the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

The Verge saw NYPD fill at least three police vans with protesters who marched through NYC’s financial district to end fossil fuels. Demonstrators are still blocking entrances to the bank, and there are more arrests going down.
Thousands of people flocked to New York City for the ‘March to End Fossil Fuels’ today.

“It’s not just a country issue. It’s a whole world issue,” says Diana Sanchez, a coordinator with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, who joined the march. “You have hurricanes, you have natural disasters, and it causes people to migrate over. And then they come to this country in search of work, and then they overheat while they’re working … So it was very important for us to be here representing all the voices that are not being heard.”
Actors add their support to end fossil fuels.

Edward Norton, Jane Fonda, Mark Ruffalo, Rosario Dawson, Alyssa Milano, Marisa Tomei, and Alicia Silverstone are among the actors who joined some 700 activists and organizations that signed a letter urging President Joe Biden to phase out fossil fuels. The letter comes ahead of a ‘March to End Fossil Fuels’ and a United Nations Climate Ambition Summit in New York City next week. “You have the executive authority to stop approving fossil fuel projects, phase out fossil fuel production on federal lands, and halt oil and gas exports,” the letter says.
Alfredo Angulo is the last person standing in the middle of the street, defying police to block the entrance to BlackRock headquarters in New York City yesterday. Emblazoned in red on their green T-shirt: a family standing between homes and an industrial building billowing smoke. It’s a scene Angulo’s all too familiar with, having grown up in the refinery town of Richmond, California.

“I could see the refinery from my kitchen window, see the smokestacks,” Angulo, who’s in New York City for events surrounding United Nations conferences this month, tells The Verge. “I’m here as a frontline community member to say that we will not be a sacrifice for the benefit of the rich.”

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The nations of the world have to seriously ramp up their clean energy ambitions because time is running out to meet the goals of the Paris climate agreement, a sweeping new United Nations report card says.

It’s the first “Global Stocktake” of the progress nearly 200 countries have made since they adopted the Paris agreement in 2015. By pushing nations to slash their greenhouse gas emissions, the global accord strives to avoid climate change so extreme that life on Earth would struggle to adapt.

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Climate Week NYC: news and protests surrounding the UN Climate Ambition Summit

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