Thousands of activists stage protest to end oil drilling

By Vishal Gulati

San Francisco, Sep 13 (IANS) Thousands of activists, mainly environmentalists, on Thursday staged a protest here, calling on Governor Brown to end oil drilling and gas production in California.

San Franciso is the venue for the Global Climate Action Summit that saw a gathering of over 4,000 delegates from across the globe, mulling ways to step up actions to reduce carbon emissions.

The protesters were demanding more ambitious regulations. Security has been stepped up after the protests.

This climate action summit, an initiative by California Governor Jerry Brown, is crucial as it is happening midway between Paris 2015 and 2020, the UNFCCC's timeframe for dealing with mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions, adaptation and finance.

The climate action summit's two-day high-level plenary session, with its focus on the launch of the Exponential Climate Action Roadmap, to move from incremental to exponential action, began on Thursday.

(Vishal Gulati is in San Francisco at the invitation of the Climate Trends to cover the Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS). He can be contacted at vishal.g@ians.in)