Global climate march 2015: hundreds of thousands march around the world – as it happened

People have marched across Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, in Yemen, Tanzania, Singapore, South Africa and Benin among many other countries.

Around 70 people reportedly turned up in Sanaa in Yemen, despite reported bombing by airplanes just a few miles away.

Walid Yehia Hassan Al-Hashef, an Avaaz member in Sanaa has written in to say:

Airstrike targets crowds of people and today early morning an airstrike hit around 4km from our protest location. We expected 150 people because of the airstrike only around 70 people showed up.

Yes, I have a message to every human being on our planet... In Yemen we are peaceful people we do not have place in our behaviors or culture for terror. We in Yemen love all people christians, jews, muslims and others.

View image in fullscreen

Marches are getting underway in Berlin and Amsterdam:

Latvian President Raimonds Vejonis, Europe’s first Green party head of state, tells Reuters that because most countries have already submitted their climate plans, a deal in Paris in two weeks’ time is close.

“...We are quite close to... an accord and a new Kyoto agreement, which would be a Paris agreement, hopefully will be reached,” he said in reference to the 1997 Kyoto protocol, the only previous legally-binding international climate treaty.

Vejonis also said he hoped all leaders would agree on a “legally-binding document” in Paris, apparently putting him at odds with the US, which has made clear it does not want a treaty.

In case you were wondering (like me) what was going to happen to all the shoes in Place de la Republique, Avaaz tells me that they are being given to a social enterprise called Relais 75 Emmaus that works with homeless people.

Tributes have been paid to Maurice Strong, the first executive director at the UN environment programme (Unep), who has died aged 86. He was also the secretary general at the Stockholm environment meeting in 1972 and Rio Earth Summit in 1992, which paved the way for the Paris climate summit that people are marching for today.

The current Unep chief, Achim Steiner, said: “Strong will forever be remembered for placing the environment on the international agenda and at the heart of development. He shepherd global environmental governance processes.”

Steiner added that a strong deal at Paris would be a “fitting tribute” to Strong’s legacy. We’ll have more on this later from my colleague John Vidal, who knew Strong.

In his last interview with the Guardian, in 2010, Strong said of the state of the world’s environment and the challenge of climate change:

Analytically, I’m pessimistic. I believe the odds are against us for making the changes we need to make in time. But, operationally, I’m optimistic because I believe that it is still possible. Tougher the longer we delay it.

The march that was expected to attract hundreds of thousands of people on the streets of Paris today may have been forbidden, but there are still plenty of people out calling for action on climate change in the French capital today.

Tweets and live streams on Periscope show what appears to be hundreds of people forming a human chain in central Paris, holding placards calling for “climate justice” and to “keep it [fossil fuels] in the ground”.

As well as the Pope, UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon has donated his shoes (a pair of new-looking running trainers), to the Paris shoe installation:

Want to know what these marches are all about? If you can make it to London on Thursday, there’s a Guardian Live event on the Paris climate summit with Australian Tim Flannery (former chief commissioner of the Climate Commission there), former UK climate diplomat John Ashton and Friends of the Earth CEO Craig Bennett. Find out more on the event listing.

Our climate talks expert, Fiona Harvey, has also written a guide on everything you need to know about the Paris summit. Or you can watch our 60-second video explainer:

March organisers say there were at least 140,000 people marching in Australia and 33,000 in New Zealand, both of which they say are the highest ever turn-outs for climate marches in both countries. The Guardian is unable to independently verify the numbers.

Climate Home, part of the Guardian Environment Network, is in Paris this morning interviewing Emma Ruby-Sachs, acting executive director at Avaaz, which has been heavily involved in organising the marches. You can watch the interview here:

Of the shoes installation in Paris, she says:

It’s kind of an incredible monument both to the voices that have been silenced but also to that hope for action that comes out of this city.

Remember, you can share your photos and videos of the marches via Guardian Witness (just click the blue button above on this blog). Here are some already submitted, from Australia to Dublin: