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From London to Mombasa, from Sydney to Rio de Janeiro, demonstrators who want to see action on climate change took to the streets today, with activists in downtown Los Angeles joining them.
Leslie Simon, a volunteer who helped organize the Los Angeles event, estimates that approximately 500 people showed up to the midday rally at City Hall.
"It was important to begin with because world leaders are meeting in Paris and we are urging that they come to a real agreement that will help to stem climate change and the disastrous effects that we are starting to see," Simon tells KPCC.
The actions come on the eve of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, a twelve-day symposium being held in Paris. The potentially historic gathering, which includes more than 100 heads of government and 40,000 other attendees according to Time, will meet to discuss ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, among other issues.
Today's action in downtown L.A. was organized by SoCal350, the local chapter of 350.org, an international organization working against climate change.
For Simon, the issues at today's rally were both global and local.
"People talk about California being a leader on climate change but we still have a governor that has not come out against fracking. We still have significant amounts of fracking taking place in Los Angeles as well as throughout California, and we think that the leaders here at home should be climate leaders and stop fracking from taking place in our state."
She cites the ongoing gas leak at Porter Ranch as a pressing local issue.
The Los Angeles City Council is slated to hear from SoCal Gas and the Board of Supervisors are supposed to hear from county health officials about the issue this week.