There wasn't as many climate activists as previous rallies, but those in attendance passionately protested against what they felt was Australia's lack of initiative and pervasive inaction on climate change.

The event, one of many around the world timed to coincide with the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow, started tamely enough at the Illawarra Performing Arts Centre precinct.

But after listening to a few speakers, activists took to the streets and marched along Burelli Street before turning into Keira Street and then sitting down on the corner of the busy Keira and Crown St intersection.

The move didn't go down too well with some motorists and shoppers. Police also took offence to the protestors who showed little signs of moving along.

Police then dragged rally organiser Kaia Cox off the street to allow normal traffic to continue.

Read more: Russell Vale picket calls for real action on climate and at COP26

But Cox and fellow environmental activists from Uni Students for Climate Justice (USCJ) and the Illawarra Climate Justice Alliance (ICJA), continued marching and singing climate chants.

One chant, 'show me what democracy looks like, this is what democracy looks like", drew the ire of an elderly lady who approached this reporter to say 'this is not what democracy looks like for me. I've been waiting in that bus for 20 minutes'.

She also didn't appreciate some of the colourful language activists used when chanting about Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

Though the chant 'the liar from the Shire, your country is on fire', drew a round of applause from some onlookers.

Mithra Cox, one of the three speakers who spoke earlier, told the activists the protest movement was working but to keep on fighting to get to net zero emissions sooner rather than later.

The Wollongong Greens councillor spoke of her time when she was a musician and performed at protest rallies outside coalmines in Victoria and NSW.

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"Every single one of those coal-fired power stations, be it Hazelwood, Liddell or Eraring, they've either been shut down or they've already been announced that they will be replaced with batteries in the coming years. This really shows the shift that has happened in the last 10 years and the protest movement is working and has been working," Cr Cox said.

But she was adamant being a councillor has enabled her to be extremely effective as a climate activist.

"Being on council has been the single most effective thing I have done as an individual," she said.

"I've played a part in declaring a climate emergency, and then following from that being able to set targets that were initially going to be net zero by 2050 but we managed to bring it forward to 2030, given the urgency of the problem.

"That means [council] is now capturing methane from the tip. It means we've implemented FOGO to stop that methane getting in there in the first place. That is 80 per cent of council's own emissions.

"It means we've had an urban greening strategy which has planted 5000 trees already . It means we've switched to green electricity."

Cr Cox said there was a huge scope of structural changes the council had been able to do in the last four years.

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"That just shows that climate change is absolutely a political problem," she said. "The technology is there, we know how to make renewable energy, we know how to store renewable energy , we just need to get on and do it. Stop wasting time."

The Wollongong rally in the afternoon followed a community picket outside the gates of Wollongong Coal's controversial Russell Vale Mine, in the morning.

Dozens of residents showed up to the third protest against the expansion of the Russell Vale Mine, in the last month, and fifth since September.

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