This spirit of grit was on my mind as I rode the metro to Place de la République, a square in central Paris, with the rest of the delegation from the Aotearoa Youth Leadership Institute. Given the attacks that happened on November 13, the French government had banned public protest actions until stated otherwise. Determined to still be part of the global climate change protest wave that was happening around the world on the eve of the Conference of the Parties and the completion of the climate change agreement, the organisations in charge of coordinating the People’s Climate March in Paris looked to alternative displays of protest.