Protesters take over NYC streets to tell Joe Biden to ‘end fossil fuels’

Princess Daazhraii Johnson, a member of the Neets’aii Gwich’in, hasn’t been able to fish at her tribe’s traditional camp on the Yukon River in Alaska for years. Salmon have dwindled with rising temperatures, a consequence of burning fossil fuels. That’s one reason why Johnson was one of thousands of people who took to the streets in New York over the past 24 hours to demand an end to oil, coal, and gas.

The aim is to put pressure on President Joe Biden and other world leaders gathering in the city this week for the United Nations General Assembly. Notably, Biden isn’t expected to attend the UN Climate Ambition Summit on Wednesday. To participate, governments need to come with “credible, serious and new climate action,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres has said.

Every country needs to slash greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050 to meet global climate goals and save millions of lives and homes that could be lost to worsening climate disasters. That can only happen if clean energy replaces fossil fuels. And a lot depends on whether the US, the world’s biggest oil and gas producer, can clean up its act.

Biden, despite pledging to get the US on track to meet global climate goals, has fallen behind, protesters say. “You would think that our leaders around the world would have their eyes wide open. Look at what just happened in Libya. Look at Lahaina. Look at all of the suffering that’s going on around the world,” Johnson says. “Declare a climate emergency. Keep it in the ground, transition us off fossil fuels.”

Demonstrators like Johnson joined a massive “March to End Fossil Fuels” on Sunday that attracted people from around the world. The action was endorsed by hundreds of scientists and more than 700 different organizations and brands, including Amnesty International, Ben & Jerry’s, the NAACP, Patagonia, Hip Hop Caucus, Sierra Club, Greenpeace USA, and other green groups. Hollywood’s prominent environmental advocates signed on to support, too, including Jane Fonda and Mark Ruffalo. Senator Ed Markey (D-MA), US Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and other Democratic lawmakers similarly backed the march and called on Biden to quit approving new fossil fuel projects and declare a climate emergency.

In Manhattan’s financial district, hundreds more people gathered on Monday morning for mass civil disobedience meant to rattle Biden and Wall Street into action. Demonstrators blocked entrances to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, leading to dozens of arrests. The Verge saw NYPD officers load protesters into at least four police vans and a bus outside of the bank. 

The Verge spoke to demonstrators from all over the US and other countries to ask them why they’re fighting.

The quotes below have been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Princess Daazhraii Johnson

Neets’aii Gwich’in from Arctic Village, Alaska, and a board member for NDN Collective and Native Movement

What action do you want Biden to take on climate change?

Alaska is not a warehouse. We are not there just to extract, extract, extract. I mean, we’re always up against big oil and mining interests and their fear tactics of like, “If you don’t do this, then the whole Alaskan economy is going to crash.” We need to just transition off fossil fuels, and we need it now.

This is the fourth year that my family hasn’t been able to go to our traditional fish camp on the Yukon River, and I’m here for the caribou and the salmon. It’s pretty dire that our families and our communities are not able to feed themselves from our traditional ways that we’ve always fed ourselves. And this is the result of burning fossil fuels. This is the result of an imbalance of humans being out of sync and out of balance with nature — of extracting too much.

I came here because I believe our voices do make a difference. And I bring our Indigenous values with us, values of just caring for one another and understanding reciprocity — how we’re connected to our waters, the land, the animals.

What does a future without fossil fuels look like for you?

Being able to go to fish camp again, to have busy fish camps and full nets, and being able to teach our culture and pass it down to our kids!

José Cruz

A construction worker from Yonkers, New York

What action do you want Biden to take on climate change?

Construction workers, because we work in areas where the climate is affecting us, it’s sending people to the hospital. They’re getting overheated. I’ve seen it myself. Because the the climate is changing too quick, sometimes it’s too cold and sometimes it’s too hot. The work conditions are changing. As a worker, Biden needs to work more on that and take more care of our planet and stop the pipelines.

What does a future without fossil fuels look like for you?

We want more trees. We want more clean water. We need more clean air. We want more for the next generation. They need a place to survive, to grow, and live in a better world. When I was kid, I remember I used to play in our areas with a lot of trees. Now, those areas are private, and they’re not many.

Khrizia Velacruz

A protester from San Francisco California, who was arrested alongside dozens of other activists during the civil disobedience outside of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on September 18th.

[Editor’s note: Velacruz spoke to The Verge with her hands tied behind her back as NYPD officers led her into a police vehicle.]

What action do you want Biden to take on climate change?

We need to end fossil fuels now or this is going to get worse and you’re going to have more people on the streets because people are wising up to the climate crisis. And those people who are affected are starting to really notice that there are people who are responsible. 

What does a future without fossil fuels look like for you?

Yara Changyit-Levin

A student from Baltimore, Maryland 

What action do you want Biden to take on climate change?

I was very eager to come to this event and hang out with my friends from the Sunrise Movement. We’ve been mobilizing against climate change since I was a kid.

Even if Biden talks about climate, he hasn’t declared a climate emergency yet. He hasn’t yet halted all fossil fuel projects and canceled existing ones. We need Biden to listen to our demands today so that we can build on this for the rest of this legislative session heading into his next presidential election. I’m going to be mobilizing young voters again, but I can’t in good faith go out and tell people to vote when I’m not doing everything I can to hold politicians accountable.

Hassan Sohail

A student from Baltimore, Maryland, who moved to the US from Pakistan to attend school

What action do you want Biden to take on climate change?

I would like for the US government to take responsibility for what they have done to the entire world. I’m originally from Pakistan, and last fall, Pakistan suffered the most severe flooding in recent history. One-third of my country was underwater. Pakistan itself contributes to less than 1 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. I want the US to recognize that this is a global issue now because of Western imperialism and because of Western consumption. And I want them to make sure that when they’re making climate policy, they take into account what they owe to other countries.

Jonathan Juarez

A member of the Pueblo of Laguna and Isleta Pueblo from Albuquerque, New Mexico

What action do you want Biden to take on climate change?

The science has been very clear, and currently what they’re saying is we cannot afford to approve any more fossil fuel projects, and all existing infrastructure has to be phased out by 2034. That gives us just over 10 years to make that happen. 

What would a future without fossil fuels look like for your community?

It would look equitable and just back home in New Mexico. You know, we really are labeled as a sacrifice zone to power other parts of the country. Our community members deal with the abnormally higher rates of asthma and cancer and other autoimmune disorders from working oil fields. And it would look like really centering them in the just transition.

John Henry Williams

An organizer with Sunrise Movement from Richmond, Virginia

What action do you want Biden to take on climate change?

Joe Biden was elected by young people. We put him over the edge. The Sunrise Movement was one of the movements that sat in the room with him and helped draft climate policy. He made promises. He broke those promises.

He needs to get back on track with the promises that he made, end all fossil fuels on public lands, and declare a climate emergency — and then push the Federal Reserve to start regulating banks so that it becomes too expensive to continue to invest in fossil fuels. 

Mario Alexander Fong

A resident of Brooklyn, New York, with the coalition Frack Outta Brooklyn

What action do you want Biden to take on climate change?

We don’t need fracked gas in 2023. We need a just transition from fossil fuels into renewable energy.

There’s fracked gas in 2023 running underneath people of color’s neighborhoods. National Grid built the North Brooklyn pipeline through Black and brown neighborhoods without the consent of the people. [Editor’s note: National Grid didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from The Verge.]

Sue Edwards

A resident from the suburbs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

What action do you want Biden to take on climate change?

I’ve been an activist all my life, mainly an anti-war activist, that kind of thing. And then I saw Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth in about 2010, and I said, “This is something that absolutely has to be worked on. This is the whole planet that’s on the wrong path. We’re headed for a cliff.” So I started getting involved.

The demands that we’re asking is that he undo permitting for fossil fuel extraction and that he actually officially declare a climate emergency. I would love to see the subsidies, which I understand are still being given to fossil fuel extraction, taken away. They don’t need subsidies; green energy needs subsidies.

Jawanza Williams

Managing director of organizing at the grassroots group Vocal-NY

What action do you want Biden to take on climate change?

What we’re here today to do is really to take advantage of the moment: that the United Nations is bringing together a first-of-its-kind climate summit. President Biden needs to understand that people in this country of all political stripes are coming together to say, number one, we need a ban on all fossil fuel on federal land. We need a ban on all pipeline projects and a reversal on that Willow pipeline project. And we need a climate emergency to be declared in the United States. This is not about polar bears or about some mythological future. This is about now and about what we’re experiencing.

What does a future without fossil fuels look like for you?

The climate emergency will require a radical transformation of what it means to be neighbors, what it means to be human, how we treat our planet, and how we treat each other. I think that this movement is a reminder that it is absolutely possible.

Update September 18th, 12:10PM ET: This post has been updated with photos and voices from protesters in New York’s financial district on September 18th.