Local Environmental Group Hopeful About UN Climate Summit

All eyes were on New York Tuesday, as world leaders met at a United Nations summit to address climate change.

The one-day meeting comes after a rallying cry from people all over the world and here at home.

The Environmental Defense Center in Santa Barbara says its been an exciting few days for activists.

Owen Bailey is the Executive Director of the Environmental Defense Center. He says he’s glad to see this conversation happening among world leaders.

“Action needs to happen on a regional level, a national level and on a global level and it needs to happen quickly,” Bailey said.

President Obama addressed the U-N General Assembly at the summit. He called on all nations to cut carbon emissions immediately.

“We can only succeed in combating climate change if we are joined in this effort by every nation, developed and developing alike, nobody gets a pass,” the President said.

Bailey agrees and says change also starts here at home.

“Here at the EDC we are looking at future development. We need to make sure that all of our carbon emissions are disclosed up front and those carbon emissions are fully mitigated,” he said.

Bailey and his children were among hundreds of thousands of people who marched in places like Ventura, Santa Barbara, New York, London and Melbourne on Sunday demanding world leaders take action, ahead of Tuesday’s summit.

World leaders will begin negotiations for a new global climate treaty in December 2015.

The hope is to avoid the outcome of the last climate summit in 2009, when world leaders failed to sign a binding agreement.