The day of the big COP march for climate justice brought together climate and social justice groups from all over the Amazon, Brazil and the entire world. What an amazing atmosphere!

In the massive crowds (CUT Brasil, the Brazil TUC, alone was a big enough group to do a march all of its own!), we took an hour to find each other!!! When we did, this long banner was unfurled and messages added!

The level of organisation of this march was impressive, each group lining up in a choreographed fashion according to designation and bloc while we waited in the shade of the mango trees for our turn…

And finally, to the beat of drums and wave of flags, we were off! All of humanity were there!

Next few images courtesy again of union rep Sami Dellah!

Believe me…this is a minute snapshot of today and does not do it justice. The drums are still ringing in my ears and I’ll never forget the atmosphere: 33 degrees heat in strong sun and 67% humidity. It poured with rain but not until we’d finished!

After more than three hours, we English decided that if we didn’t peel off slightly early, we would have full blown heatstroke! So we did peel off and found ourselves in a cool (relatively!), shady, family run and very friendly buffet cafe where you paid for the weight of your plate. Home cooked Brazilian traditional food. Lovely. We sat alongside dehydrated marchers from every corner of the world and the typical Brazilian welcome meant a speedy recovery!

Later we returned to the COP for an official COP side event on education, to hear our union brother Sifiso speak. As usual he spoke with passion on teachers’ capacity, the necessity of climate education, and how countries needed to be held to account on this.

On returning to our apartment, my messages came in of the solidarity protests around the UK: here are Leeds and London! With deep thanks to all those who turned out and who recognise that this is the important issue of our time. As we saw today, the Global South need no convincing.

And here’s Paul, Chair of the NEU Climate Network, for the last word today: