London, Nov 05: Between 10,000 and 14,000 protesters converged on Central London as part of global protests calling for urgent action from world leaders to tackle climate change, police and organisers said.
A metropolitan police spokeswoman told a news agency yesterday that "about 10,000, give or take" assembled in Trafalgar Square for the culmination of a day of demonstrations involving cyclists, walkers, celebrities, politicians and "green" lobbyists.
But organisers the stop climate chaos coalition put the figure at about 14,000.
According to police, about 4,000 people gathered outside the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square to call for Washington to ratify the 1997 Kyoto protocol that set targets for a reduction in signatory countries' carbon dioxide emissions.
Ahead of a United Nations climate change conference in Nairobi, Kenya, on Monday, British Prime Minister Tony Blair's government was urged to help negotiate a deal to keep global warming to less than two degrees centigrade. Demonstrators also called for Britain to lead by example and propose new laws to cut Britain's Co2 levels further.
"The UK government can make an important case at the talks next week. There is a danger threshold: if we breach it, it could be catastrophic," said the director of the stop
climate chaos coalition, Ashok Sinha.
Sinha said that the economic argument -- made in a government-commissioned report published earlier this week -- was of "fundamental importance" and could save countries
billions.
Bureau Report
