As the United Nations Climate Action Summit opens in New York later this month, a coalition of activists plans to bring D.C.’s streets to a standstill by blocking key intersections around the city.

“It’s important to call attention to the climate emergency,” says Kaela Bamberger, a spokesperson for the group. “The point being to disrupt business as usual for people and policy makers in decision-making positions, and also to essentially shut the city down until the issue gets the type of attention that it deserves based on the gravity of the crisis that we’re in.” 

She declined to say exactly which streets will be blocked or exactly when the protest will start, but it is aimed at disrupting the morning rush hour on September 23.

Organizer Miles Amoore said over email that there will be “music, dancing, drumming, blood clinics, yoga, brightly dressed demonstrators and other festivities that we can’t talk about yet for security reasons” in the middle of the intersections.

The coalition of more than a dozen groups includes Black Lives Matter DMV, Chesapeake Climate Action Network Action Fund, Code Pink,  Friends of the Earth Action, and Metro DMV Democratic Socialists of America, among others.

The blockade will be preceded by a student strike and protest on September 20, in which activists plan to march from the White House to the U.S. Capitol. Student activists told Kojo Nnamdi that they expect more than 5,000 students to participate in the D.C. area alone.

“We’re in this crisis because of a systematic issue, and the change that we have to make has to be systematic. And that’s why I think that it’s really important that individual action is, you know, focused towards the system, and not just in your home or in your backyard,” said Sophia Geiger, a high school student in Montgomery County and a national organizer with Fridays for the Future, which organizes regular student strikes on Fridays.

Hundreds of other events are also planned around the world to coincide with the climate summit, and a number of other shutdowns are planned globally for later in the week.

In D.C., Bamberger says they expect more than 1,000 people to join in blocking the streets.

“We’ve been ignored by our political leaders thus far on this issue. We’ve tried doing sanctioned forms of protest like rallies, protests, petitions, office lobbying, and it hasn’t worked. This is a next level of trying to take our future into our hands because clearly the people in power are corrupted,” says Bamberger, who is also an activist with Extinction Rebellion D.C. (that group recently organized a protest in the Capitol in which a number of people used Gorilla Glue to affix themselves to the wall of the building.)

She acknowledges the inconvenience of shutting down city streets, but says that it is ultimately for everyone’s benefit. “We are actually doing this action for everyone who is going to be affected by climate change, which is everyone.” 

This story has been updated with additional details.