As California Governor Jerry Brown’s Global Climate Action Summit kicked off Thursday, indigenous and climate justice activists blocked the main entrance in protest. While the protests took place outside the GCAS, Gov. Brown and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the UN special envoy for climate action, were inside. Protesters disrupted Bloomberg’s speech at the summit’s main plenary. Democracy Now! was there, in the streets and at the conference.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, Democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. We are broadcasting from San Francisco, the site of the Global Climate Action Summit organized by California Governor Jerry Brown. But the opening of the summit Thursday was disrupted as indigenous and climate justice activists blocked the main entrance to the summit. Democracy Now! was there in the streets.
PROTESTERS: [chanting] No cap and trade! No cap and trade! No cap and trade!
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman. We’re right at the opening of the Global Climate Action Summit. It is Thursday morning, but it is not the normal delegates that are coming through; it is a direct action that’s taking place outside. Over 1,000 people organizers, protesters, sky and water protectors are challenging Governor Brown, the governor of California, who has convened this summit, saying this is Brown’s last chance not only dealing with emissions but dealing with oil extraction, demanding that he, among other things, ban fracking. Now we see in front of us is a group of people who well, let’s find out who they are.
ANGELA ADRAR: My name is Angela Adrar, and I’m with the Climate Justice Alliance and It Takes Roots. We’re holding the doors of the Global Climate Action Summit and we’re blocking them, because the solutions that people need to be hearing, the world needs to be hearing, are actually here on the streets. They…