WHILE the big-wigs thrash it out in Copenhagen, a group of Cairns residents will march on the Esplanade to make its stand on climate change.

A nationwide Walk Against Warming on Saturday will coincide with the midpoint in the much-anticipated United Nation’s Climate Change Conference, and with the International Day of Action on Climate Change.

Cairns Climate Coalition’s Anna McGuire said residents could not afford to be complacent weeks after a new report released by the Federal Government named Cairns as one of the nation’s five most vulnerable areas in the face of climate change.

"We are a low-lying coastal city at a time when sea levels are predicted to rise because of global warming," Ms McGuire said.

"But on top of that we are facing declining Reef health, the loss of rainforest species and more if serious action is not taken."

Her words come as divisions emerge at the Copenhagen climate conference where a proposal to set aside $10 billion a year to help poor nations cope with climate change has been declared an insult by the developing world representative.

Delegates from around world have said they accept the science of climate change and are ready to take action, but people at a rival conference in Copenhagen are calling for any climate treaty to be rejected.

Ms McGuire said projected sea level markers would be set up along the Esplanade, and the coalition was hoping for several hundred walkers.

Cairns’ Walk Against Warming will start at 8.30am on the Esplanade opposite the hospital and will end at the Lagoon where there will be information stalls and speakers including researchers.

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