ORONO — More than 100 University of Maine students are heading to the Big Apple this weekend to take part in what is being hailed as the biggest demonstration in the history of the climate justice movement.

Set for Sunday in New York and other major cities around the globe, the People’s Climate March is expected to draw as many as 200,000 to New York alone, according to UMaine student Michael Bailey, who along with fellow students Catherine Fletcher and Connor Scott, is organizing the trip.

The event is being held in advance of the United Nations’ meeting on Tuesday in New York to discuss climate change policies ahead of the 2015 Paris meeting to establish a global treaty on climate change.

Bailey said the university is sending 108 people on two buses to the New York event, thanks to funding from the student government.

“We are going because the climate crisis is the biggest challenge our world faces today, and it needs to be addressed, plain and simple,” Bailey said Thursday in an email. “We’re marching because it has always been and always will be acts of direct democracy (protests, marches, boycotts) that create immediate and necessary change — look no farther than the Civil Rights Movement and the anti-war movement during Vietnam, both of which were made up largely of college students. It’s gonna be rad.

“I have two hopes for this event,” he said. “First, I hope our massive demonstration makes an impact and influences our world leaders. Second, for our UMaine group, I hope it energizes our campus and ignites a growth in activism, particularly in the effort to get the (University of Maine System) board of trustees to divest from fossil fuels.”

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