Tens of thousands of people have crammed onto Melbourne’s streets to send a message to world leaders going to Paris for the United Nations climate summit.
Organisers estimate the crowd was between 50,000 and 60,000 people strong.
The People’s Climate March in Melbourne started outside the State Library with a few songs from the Cat Empire’s Felix Riebel, before speeches from Geoff Cousins, President of the Australian Conservation Foundation, Amelia Telford, National Director of SEED indigenous youth climate network, Luke Hilakari, Secretary of the Victorian Trades Hall Council, Cardinal Óscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga, a Honduran Catholic Cardinal and the Vatican’s spokesperson with the IMF and World Bank on the issue of Third World Debt, and others.
The huge crowd then made its way down Swanston Street, then up Bourke Street to state parliament.
At the intersection of Bourke and Spring Streets two final speakers addressed the crowd before one minute of silence, before Emma Donovan led a rendition of Paul Kelly’s From Little Things Big Things Grow.
