Climate protesters march on Wall Street

Hundreds of protesters marched through New York City’s financial district yesterday and blocked streets near the stock exchange to denounce Wall Street’s role in raising money for businesses that contribute to climate change.

Protesters stopped traffic on Broadway, south of the New York Stock Exchange. Occupying about two blocks, some were standing while others sat. Two were arrested after trying to cross a police barricade.

The demonstration, called Flood Wall Street, came on the heels of Sunday’s international day of action that brought some 310,000 people to the streets of New York City in what activists was said was the largest protest ever held on climate change.

Sunday’s turnout was about triple that of the previous biggest, a Copenhagen demonstration staged five years ago.

Kai Sanburn, a 60-year-old nurse and mother of two from Los Angeles, said she had travelled to New York for Sunday’s march and wanted to do more. “Marching is wonderful but to really change things we really need to change things,” Sanburn said yesterday.

“The action here against Wall Street is really expressive of the feeling that corporations and capitalism no longer serve people.”

The group has roots in the Occupy Wall Street movement that started in a downtown Manhattan park in 2011 to protest what it called unfair banking practices that serve the wealthiest 1%, leaving behind 99% of the world’s population.

Flood Wall Street organisers said they hope yesterday’s action will draw a link between economic policies and the environment, accusing top financial institutions of “exploiting frontline communities, workers and natural resources” for financial gain.

The event is part of Climate Week, which seeks to draw attention to carbon emissions and their link to global warming, and it comes ahead of a United Nations Climate Summit today.