SALT LAKE CITY – A People's Climate March event is being held in Utah on Sunday to show solidarity with a national event in New York City, ahead of next week's Climate Summit at the United Nations.
Jai Hamid Bashir is among those organizing the event, which starts at noon Sunday from Salt Lake City Hall.
"I believe that climate justice is the most potent and important matter of this time and space,” she stresses. “And it's a matter of complete and utter urgency.”
Organizers say the People's Climate March in New York City, which is expected to attract more than 100,000 participants, is also meant to show public support for the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan.
It calls for a 30 percent reduction in carbon emissions from power plants by 2030.
Mark Clemens, manager of the Utah Chapter of the Sierra Club, says the United Nations Climate Summit brings together leaders from many nations with hopes of reducing carbon emissions, which research has shown are harmful to human health.
"As we address the carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions, we're also likely making our cities and countryside cleaner, more productive places, environments in which to live," he stresses.
Clemens says the Sierra Club will continue calling on Rocky Mountain Power, the state's main electric utility, to build more infrastructure for wind and solar power as it retires coal-fired power plants.
