A wide variety of tactics were taken this week to send strong message to financiers and President Biden: It’s time to phase out fossil fuels

By now you’ve heard about some of the demonstrations held worldwide this week by people demanding decisive, rapid action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that are wreaking havoc on the climate. And the 75,000 people who showed up on the streets of New York Sunday featured a broad diversity of people and organizations, including many Indigenous leaders, scientists and faith leaders. 

The actions just before and after the big march have been a bit less visible, including the targeting of financial institutions that bankroll much of the fossil fuel industry. Those include the blockades at Citibank’s headquarters on Thursday, protests at Bank of America Tower, and hundreds of activists surrounding the Federal Reserve on Wall Street (see video).

All of these actions came under the banner of demands put forward to Biden and large financiers, that people from all around the world see the importance of a fair, fast, and just end to our global economic dependence on fossil fuels. Take a look at some of these photos from as far away as Jakarta, Indonesia, and as close as Sacramento, California. 

It’s past time for the Biden administration to adopt more substantive strategies to combat climate change, including a binding resolution to stop producing and using oil, gas and coal. Without rapid actions, we can expect the current trend of extreme climate events like the tragic floods in Libya, runaway wildfires and accelerated species extinction. 

President Biden came short of declaring a national emergency as was called for by many people in the US participating in protests. The US also failed to send senior leadership to the UN Climate Ambition Summit, or support the nonproliferation treaty on fossil fuels. Concurrently, the President compared the risks of climate change to a nuclear disaster, created a “Climate Corps” by executive order, and continued with the approval for more oil and gas extraction in the Gulf of Mexico. White House did announce the creation of the American Climate Corps, which promises to train young people in emerging industries like solar and wind energy, and for adaptation to conditions for the expected rise in climate disruptions in the near future. 

All of this comes at a time just before the 2023-2028 National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program coordinated by the Bureau of Ocean Management is expected to be finalized. Whether the new proposal will include new leases for offshore drilling or not is unknown.