Over 24 hours of climate action, organizers of the climate strike believe more than 1 million students skipped school on Friday or protest government inaction on climate change.
From Australia and New Zealand, to Asia, Europe, Africa, North America and South America, students from all over the world took to the streets to demand change.
Organizers said there were more than 2,000 protests in 125 countries.
The student movement was inspired by 16-year-old Greta Thunberg, now nominated for a Nobel Prize, who kicked off a global movement after she sat outside Swedish parliament every Friday beginning last August.
Many students expressed anger, fear and disappointment that adults have not acted.
Many also expressed hope for a green economy within 11 years, the timeframe experts at the United Nations believe is necessary to forestall catastrophic climate change.
Even as students demanded change, some ignored their pleas, including diplomatic delegations from the US, who watered down agreements to eliminate single-use plastics.
Students take part in a “youth strike to act on climate change” demonstration in Nantes, France, March 15, 2019. Photograph: Stéphane Mahé/Reuters
To wrap up, here are the words of Hannah Laga Abram, an 18-year-old from Santa Fe, New Mexico, and just one of the one million students who protested today:
We are living in the sixth mass extinction. Ice is melting. Forests are burning. Waters are rising. And we do not even speak of it. Why?
Because admitting the facts means admitting crimes of epic proportions by living our daily lives. Because counting the losses means being overpowered by grief. Because allowing the scale of the crisis means facing the fear of swiftly impending disaster and the fact that our entire system must change.
But now is not the time to ignore science in order to save our feelings. It is time to be terrified, enraged, heartbroken, grief-stricken, radical.
Here’s an excerpt from A manifesto for tackling the climate change crisis, by UK Student Climate Network:
We’re young, we’re students and we’re calling for change. Our movement started in February when tens of thousands of young people took to the streets in towns and cities around Britain, in an unprecedented emergence of a youth climate justice movement.
We’ve joined a movement that’s spreading rapidly across the world, catalysed by the actions of one individual in taking a stand in August last year. Greta Thunberg may have been the spark, but we’re the wildfire and we’re fuelled by the necessity for action.
The climate is in crisis. We will be facing ecological catastrophe and climate breakdown in the very near future if those in power don’t act urgently and radically to change our trajectory. Scientists have been giving increasingly dire warnings about the state of our planet for years, with the urgency and severity of their message escalating in recent times. It’s abundantly clear: change is needed, and it’s needed now!
Students pose in front of Metropolitan Cathedral at the main square Zocalo, before they take part in a march demanding action on climate change, in Mexico City, Mexico. Photograph: Henry Romero/Reuters
Alexandria Villsenor, 13, has spent every Friday since December wrapped in a coat outside the United Nations headquarters in New York City, protesting inaction on climate change.
She, Isra Hirsi of Minnesota (US Representative Ilhan Omar’s daughter) and Haven Coleman from Colorado organized the US Youth Climate Strike.
The Davis, California-native said, when she last met Guardian US environment reporter Oliver Milman, she’d been outside for so long (four hours), “I lost circulation in my toes for the first time.”
My generation knows that climate change will be the biggest problem we’ll have to face,” Villasenor said. “It’s upsetting that my generation has to push these leaders to take action. We aren’t going to stop striking until some more laws are passed.”
Alexandria skips school on Friday morning to strike in front of the UN, with signs reading: “School Strike 4 Climate” and “Cop24 Failed Us.” Alexandria Villasenor is a 13-year-old climate activist who has been striking in front of the UN building for nine weeks, and, along with Greta Thunberg and fellow young activists around the world, is organizing a global school strike for climate on March 15. Photograph: The Washington Post/Getty Images
Another one of the students who shared with us why the the student strikes are important is Abigail Leedy, 17, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Scores of young people, including students staging a walkout, attend the Philly Youth Climate Strike in Love Park in solidarity with dozens of marches around the world, March 15, 2019. Their concerns include unchecked pollution and other environmental risks they feel are not being addressed by adults in government. Photograph: Michael Candelori/REX/Shutterstock
I’m striking Friday because I live in Philadelphia, a city I love with my whole heart.
More than 156,000 people, or 10% of our city, will be displaced by sea level rise if we don’t make drastic changes to our carbon emissions. Already, students in Philadelphia missed five days of school in this fall due to excessive heat...
I am terrified about what will happen to the city I love if officials don’t take action that rises to the challenge of the climate crisis. I’m scared for myself and for the 17-year-old’s just like me who will grow up in an increasingly unlivable world, start families in neighborhoods where there is no clean air to breathe, about the lives that will be lost to climate fueled disasters like the fires in California or hurricanes in Puerto Rico or, soon enough, floods in Philadelphia.
I’m striking because what seems so terribly clear to me- that lives have already been lost to the climate crisis, that if we do not take action now there will be an unfathomable human cost- seems to be lost on my elected officials.
My self-described “progressive” representative, Dwight Evans, refuses to co-sponsor the Green New Deal resolution, the only solution that rises to the scale of the crisis. Nancy Pelosi has derided it as a “Green Dream” and Senator Dianne Feinstein is on video claiming she won’t support it just because she doesn’t think it will get enough support in the Republican-controlled senate.
I’m striking because I feel like I have run out of ways to communicate to my elected officials; that climate inaction is violence; and that my life, air and future, and those of every other 17-year-old – every young person – is on the line.
“We’re here today to call upon all levels of our gov for a just transition to 100% renewable energy by 2030 that protects workers & upholds Indigenous rights” Claire, Edmonton Grade 10 student#YouthClimateStrikepic.twitter.com/f9jGKyELMb
For the first time Thursday, Coca-Cola revealed it produces 3 million tonnes of single-use plastic packaging per year, or the equivalent of 108bn 500 ml plastic bottles.
The same day tens of thousands of students came together to combat climate change and oil and gas dependence, international negotiators said the US thwarted pledges to reduce plastic pollution, “guided by the interests of the fracking and petrochemical industry.”
A man wears a costume of empty plastic bottles during a climate protest in Brussels, Friday, March 15, 2019. From the South Pacific to the edge of the Arctic Circle, students mobilized by word of mouth and social media skipped class Friday to protest what they believe are their governments’ failure to take though action against global warming. Photograph: Francisco Seco/AP
More from Reuters in Nairobi here:
Nations made their first global commitment towards curtailing the surging consumption of single-use plastics on Friday, but critics said it failed to confront the planet’s pollution crisis with the United States blocking efforts for more radical action.
...
Negotiators said most nations, including the European Union, at the UNEA backed stronger action suggested by India which wanted governments to commit to “phasing-out most problematic single-use plastic products by 2025”.
But a few countries led by the United States - and including Saudi Arabia and Cuba - played “spoiler” by watering down the text, replacing it with a commitment to “significantly reduce” single-use plastics by 2030, said negotiators and campaigners.
“The vast majority of countries came together to develop a vision for the future of global plastic governance,” said David Azoulay from the Center for International Environmental Law.
“Seeing the U.S., guided by the interests of the fracking and petrochemical industry, leading efforts to sabotage that vision is disheartening.”
Brian Doherty, a member of the U.S. delegation at the UNEA, told delegates there was a need to focus on waste management in countries which were major sources of marine plastic pollution, rather than focus on phasing out single use plastics.
“We support reducing the environmental impacts from the discharge of plastics, but we further note that the majority of marine plastic discharges comes from only six countries in Asia where improved waste management could radically decrease these discharges,” he said.
One million plastic drinks bottles are purchased every minute globally, while some 500 billion disposable plastic bags are used worldwide every year, said the United Nations.
Thousands take part in a protest called by the “Fridays For Future” movement on a global day of student protests aiming to spark world leaders into action on climate change in Santiago, Chile, on March 15, 2019. Photograph: Martin Bernetti/AFP/Getty Images
CHILE-CLIMATE-YOUTH-PROTEST A demonstrators holds a placard during a protest called by the “Fridays For Future” movement on a global day of student protests aiming to spark world leaders into action on climate change in Santiago, Chile, on March 15, 2019. Photograph: Martin Bernetti/AFP/Getty Images
An activist shows her belly, painted with the words, “to protect from our own destruction” during a protest called by the “Fridays For Future” movement on a global day of student protests aiming to spark world leaders into action on climate change on March 15, 2019 in Santiago, Chile. Photograph: Martin Bernetti/AFP/Getty Images
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