Hundreds took part in a global climate march in Hamilton on Sunday.

Kiribati people joined a Hamilton climate action march in support of families back home facing the reality of rising sea levels.

Hundreds of marchers gathered in Hamilton's Garden Place on Sunday as part of an international effort to raise awareness of climate change and climate negotiations in Paris in December.

And there were enough marchers in the Hamilton parade to fill a lane of Victoria St from Garden Place to Collingwood St.

MIKE SCOTT/FAIRFAX NZ The Hamilton march's aim was to create political will for climate action, organisers said.

Marching in traditional dress were about 30 members from Kiribati Waikato Association.

The issue was close to their hearts because of the low-lying nation they came from, group member Louisa Humphry said.

"We have family in Kiribati and that worries us... Children are going to school wading in knee-high water when it's high. They go to school carrying their books a little bit higher," she said.

"There's really nowhere to hide [in Kiribati]... We're, at the moment, the very forefront of climate change."

But she was heartened to see awareness of climate change in New Zealand because everyone in the world would be affected, she said.

The Hamilton parade was the 35th such event in New Zealand and was organised by Waikato Climate Action as part of the global People's Climate Movement.

It began in Garden Place with music and speeches, before taking the demonstration down Victoria Street to finish at the Grantham St band rotunda.

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With colourful characters including a polar bear, and a green man carrying a globe, the march caught the attention of people in the CBD.

One marcher carried a potted plant while another was topped by a dinosaur skeleton.

The dinosaur represented the fossil fuel age, Waikato Climate Action member Greg Rzesniowieckisaid.

"We need to move to a new energy system based on renewables. That technology is all available right now. All it needs is political will."

The march was about showing the Government that New Zealanders - and people in the Waikato - wanted it to do the right thing when it came to climate change.

"If we don't get it right now we effectively sign a contract with the future which says we're going to have a much hotter planet. We have to make the decision now," he said.

"Climate change is intergenerational inequality. We're taking now and we're not looking after the future. So in the future young people... will be paying the price for our wasting and not doing the right thing."

Speakers at the march included leaders from local councils, political parties, climate action groups, and law student Sarah Thomson, who is taking a climate change lawsuit against the New Zealand Government.

Forest and Bird's Al Fleming told the crowd he was embarrassed by the New Zealand Government's proposed targets for greenhouse gas emissions.

The 11 per cent reduction on 1990 levels was due to be presented at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21), which begins in Paris on November 30.

"It's like there's a party and everyone's invited to the table to bring the finest cuisine... and New Zealand is bringing a dog's breakfast," Fleming said.

The climate action marches were timed for the lead-up to the conference, commonly called COP21, which will run until December 11.