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AFP
Stockholm
Tens of thousands of young people skipped school across the globe on Friday to march through the streets for an international day of student protests aimed at pushing world leaders into action on climate change.
Classrooms in capitals from Bangkok to Berlin, Lagos to London emptied as as ambitious organisers of the student strike hoped to stage 1,000 demos in more than 100 countries.
As youngsters hit the streets in cities across the globe, nations meeting at the UN environment assembly in the Kenyan capital Nairobi announced that they had agreed to “significantly reduce” single-use plastics over the next decade.
But experts said the pledge -- which only referred to man-made global warming and made no mention of the fossil fuels driving it -- fell far short of the steps needed to tackling Earth’s burgeoning pollution crisis.
As the marathon talks drew to a close, students flooded into the streets across Europe and Asia carrying placards reading: “There is no planet B”, “You’re destroying our future” and “If you don’t act like adults, we will.”
Despite three decades of warnings, carbon dioxide emissions hit record levels in 2017 and again last year.
Loading the atmosphere with greenhouse gases at current rates will eventually lead to an uninhabitable planet, scientists say.
In Stockholm, Swedish teen activist Greta Thunberg who inspired the protests, was thronged by journalists and several dozen protesters, one carrying a banner declaring “Make the Climate Greta Again”.
“We are living through an existential crisis that has been ignored for decades and if we do not act now it may be too late,” the 16-year-old told Swedish public television station SVT. Thunberg has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for her activism.
In Delhi, one of the world’s most polluted cities, 200 students took part in a colourful protest, waving ribbons, juggling and performing stunts with hoops.
“We have to make a choice whether we want to sit and be indifferent or do something for our planet,” said 16-year-old student Srijani Datta.
“Most of us are 16-17 and we’re going to turn 18 soon... As voters we will show we care about climate change. If you can’t give us that, you will not get our votes.”
In Sydney, 18-year-old Charles Rickwood, warned that Australia’s famous Great Barrier Reef could be destroyed.
“Especially if current trends in the environment continue, we’ll see the one, two degrees increase in our ocean then it will simply become unsustainable and we could lose the entire Great Barrier Reef,” he told AFP.
European students were also out en masse, with several thousand youngsters throng the streets of central London in a raucous demonstration featuring a multitude of banners, placards and sloganeering.
Stockholm
Tens of thousands of young people skipped school across the globe on Friday to march through the streets for an international day of student protests aimed at pushing world leaders into action on climate change.
Classrooms in capitals from Bangkok to Berlin, Lagos to London emptied as as ambitious organisers of the student strike hoped to stage 1,000 demos in more than 100 countries.
As youngsters hit the streets in cities across the globe, nations meeting at the UN environment assembly in the Kenyan capital Nairobi announced that they had agreed to “significantly reduce” single-use plastics over the next decade.
But experts said the pledge -- which only referred to man-made global warming and made no mention of the fossil fuels driving it -- fell far short of the steps needed to tackling Earth’s burgeoning pollution crisis.
As the marathon talks drew to a close, students flooded into the streets across Europe and Asia carrying placards reading: “There is no planet B”, “You’re destroying our future” and “If you don’t act like adults, we will.”
Despite three decades of warnings, carbon dioxide emissions hit record levels in 2017 and again last year.
Loading the atmosphere with greenhouse gases at current rates will eventually lead to an uninhabitable planet, scientists say.
In Stockholm, Swedish teen activist Greta Thunberg who inspired the protests, was thronged by journalists and several dozen protesters, one carrying a banner declaring “Make the Climate Greta Again”.
“We are living through an existential crisis that has been ignored for decades and if we do not act now it may be too late,” the 16-year-old told Swedish public television station SVT. Thunberg has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for her activism.
In Delhi, one of the world’s most polluted cities, 200 students took part in a colourful protest, waving ribbons, juggling and performing stunts with hoops.
“We have to make a choice whether we want to sit and be indifferent or do something for our planet,” said 16-year-old student Srijani Datta.
“Most of us are 16-17 and we’re going to turn 18 soon... As voters we will show we care about climate change. If you can’t give us that, you will not get our votes.”
In Sydney, 18-year-old Charles Rickwood, warned that Australia’s famous Great Barrier Reef could be destroyed.
“Especially if current trends in the environment continue, we’ll see the one, two degrees increase in our ocean then it will simply become unsustainable and we could lose the entire Great Barrier Reef,” he told AFP.
European students were also out en masse, with several thousand youngsters throng the streets of central London in a raucous demonstration featuring a multitude of banners, placards and sloganeering.
