Protesters Clog Streets, Disrupt Speakers at Global Climate Action Summit

PHOTO: via Oil Change International

Several hundred protesters filled streets near the Global Climate Action Summit, blocking entrances to the Moscone Center conference hall on September 13. They shut down the intersections of Third and Folsom and Third and Howard, causing traffic to be rerouted.

There were reportedly several scuffles as police tried to remove protesters who had chained themselves to the gates of the conference building. Two people were arrested. David Turnbull of Oil Change International said, "We took over the street, and eventually blockades were set up at the entrances, which substantially disrupted entrance into the GCAS venue."

Outside the building activists chanted “Tell Jerry Brown to keep it in the ground”. Meanwhile, inside the summit gathering, protesters interrupted a speech by Michael Bloomberg, billionaire and former mayor of New York City, with the chant “Our air is not for sale".

The action was led by and in solidarity with indigenous and frontline communities protecting the earth. The campaign known as Brown’s Last Chance writes that, "the Global Climate Action Summit, hosted by Governor Brown, is designed to celebrate climate achievements and encourage more action. Yet Governor Brown continues to protect billion-dollar dirty oil corporations that actively seek to undermine the necessary change. Without commitments to directly address oil and gas drilling and expansion in California, organizations from California and around the world will make their voices heard".

Thursday’s protest was a joint effort of the It Takes Roots coalition and members of the Brown's Last Chance campaign.