London climate change march draws 20,000 people

LONDON (Reuters) - Around 20,000 people joined a climate change march in central London on Saturday calling for world leaders to agree a deal to protect the environment at their summit in Copenhagen.

The protest was organized by a coalition of green groups and charities calling for action to prevent global temperatures rising more than two degrees centigrade, seen by many scientists as the threshold for dangerous climate change.

The marchers, many wearing blue clothes and face paint, made their way toward the Houses of Parliament chanting slogans and blowing whistles, bearing placards saying "Climate Justice Now" and "Climate Change: The End Is Nigh."

The Stop Climate Chaos protest was attended by Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, who said Britain would push for a far-reaching pact at the Copenhagen meeting starting next week.

"We want the most ambitious deal we can get at the climate change talks," he told BBC television from the march.

"We are taking to Copenhagen not just the commitment to reduce our emissions by 34 percent by 2020, but a commitment to do more ... We want to use our willingness to do more to push other countries -- the United States, China, Australia, Japan, everyone -- to be part of an ambitious agreement."

MET OFFICE

He said plans announced by Britain's Meteorological Office on Saturday to release data from hundreds of weather stations around the world would rebut climate change deniers.

Global warming skeptics say leaked emails from a British climate research institute show scientists colluded to make global warming data look more convincing.

"(The Met Office) are going to release the data so that those skeptics who say there is something to hide have no place to go," Miliband said.

He said scientists were "in no doubt about the science of climate change, that it is man-made and it is happening."

Barbara Stocking, chief executive of charity Oxfam, said leaders in Copenhagen had to agree financing for the poorest countries so they could deal with environmental changes already affecting them.

"What we hear from all poor people around the world is: the seasons have changed, we don't know when to plant," she told BBC television. "For poor people, climate change is not something in the future, climate change is hitting them now."

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