AOC to headline rally at New York climate march ahead of UN summit

March on Sunday will cap a week of more than 650 global actions and is expected to be the largest US climate march in five years

A climate protest and rally headlined by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Sunday are expected to bring thousands of activists to the streets of New York.

Under the banner March to End Fossil Fuels, protesters will push the Biden administration to take bold steps to phase out fossil fuels. The demonstration will fall days before the United Nations Climate Ambition Summit, which the UN secretary general, António Guterres, has described as a “no nonsense” conference meant to highlight new climate commitments.

On Friday national security adviser Jake Sullivan said President Biden was not currently scheduled to take part in Wednesday’s UN climate summit. Biden has been praised by climate activists for last year passing a historic $369bn climate law but also criticized for the approval of one of the largest oil drilling projects in recent decades, the Willow project in Alaska

On Sunday protesters will demand an end to the approval of new oil and gas projects, a phasing out of fossil fuel drilling on public lands, the declaration of a federal climate emergency and support for workers as polluting industries are phased out – demands that have been endorsed by more than 500 organizations including the NAACP, the Sierra Club and the Sunrise Movement; celebrities such as Jeremy Strong, Edward Norton, Jane Fonda and Mark Ruffalo; and more than 400 scientists.

In a recent Guardian interview, the Democratic congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez spoke about how the climate crisis “does not really care about the political complexities that we very much have to grapple with in our work.

“We can celebrate all of these policies that result in reductions but we also can’t erase them with increased oil and gas production.”

Sunday’s march was organized in large part by youth-led climate groups, including Greta Thunberg’s Fridays for Future movement.

“We are marching to make it clear to President Biden that he is betraying the very youth who helped get him into office in the first place,” Bree Campbell, a 17-year-old organizer with New York City’s Fridays for Future chapter, said. “We are marching to make him see us – and to make him act on his promises. We are marching because everyone deserves a clean, healthy and just future, and ending the era of fossil fuels will help ensure that.”

Bill McKibben, veteran climate campaigner and co-founder of Third Act, a climate group aimed at older activists, said the event will also convene elders.

“It’s true that some of us will be dead before the climate damage reaches its peak – but we can imagine that future and so we want to help head it off while we can,” he said, noting that some activists who will attend “have been marching since the first Earth Day in 1970”.

New York congressman Jamaal Bowman and former Ireland president Mary Robinson are expected to give remarks before Sunday’s protest, while Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Unicef goodwill ambassador Vanessa Nakate will headline the rally that will follow.

Organizers expect the event will be the largest climate march in the US in five years. It will cap off a week of more than 650 global climate actions that took place this week in countries including Bolivia, Pakistan, Ethiopia and Austria.

In Washington DC on Friday, progressive lawmakers and activists rallied outside the Capitol. And in New York, scores of activists protested outside the headquarters of asset manager BlackRock and Citibank on Wednesday and Thursday respectively, to call attention to both firms’ investments in fossil fuels; dozens were arrested.

In Quezon City in the Philippines, activists lay in front of the department of environment and natural resources in protest and held signs demanding fossil fuels – from coal to natural gas – be phased out. Outside the Indonesian energy and mineral resources ministry in Jakarta, protesters held signs calling for end to dirty fuels and greenwashing as police officers looked on.

In Sweden, climate activists gathered in front of parliament, just next to the royal palace where Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf was celebrating his 50th anniversary on the throne. Their chants about “climate justice” could be heard in the palace courtyard as the king watched the changing of the guard during the golden jubilee celebrations.

And in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, dozens joined a protest march through the city of Goma, shouting slogans and waving banners and placards calling for an end to corporate control of fossil fuels. The Congolese government caused an uproar among environmentalists last year by putting 30 oil and gas blocks up for auction, including 13 blocks crisscrossing through protected areas and national parks.

Additional climate protests will be held throughout the following week, including at New York City’s Zuccotti Park on Monday morning.

Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images - Climate activists demonstrate in front of the headquarters of BlackRock, in New York.