Greta Thunberg to lead Global Climate Strike on Friday

The international protest from 150 countries will come ahead of the UN Climate Action Summit.
Young people from around the world are leading a massive coordinated strike from school on Friday, September 20, to protest government and business inaction on climate change. It is likely to be one of the largest environmental protests in history.The Global Climate Strike comes just before countries will gather at the United Nations for the Climate Action Summit on September 23, an event ahead of the UN General Assembly where countries are supposed to ramp up their ambitions to curb greenhouse gases under the 2015 Paris climate agreement. A second worldwide strike is planned for September 27.
“If you can’t be in the strike, then, of course, you don’t have to,” 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, the original school striker who last year began demanding more action from her government on climate change with weekly protests, told Teen Vogue. “But I think if there is one day you should join, this is the day.”
Thunberg has become an increasingly influential figurehead and voice for youth climate angst and activism. Since she no longer flies because of the aviation industry’s high carbon emissions, she was offered the opportunity to travel to the US on a zero-emissions sailboat. After arriving on August 28, she’s now in Washington, DC, speaking before Congress and meeting with US lawmakers and activists before heading to New York City for the strikes and the summit.
It’s a big moment for Thunberg and the legions of youth and adult activists and leaders she’s inspired since she began skipping school on Fridays to protest outside the Swedish Parliament in August 2018. Thousands of young people in the movement, called Fridays for Future, now strike every Friday to demand more aggressive action from their governments and the international community. The last large-scale coordinated climate strike on May 24 drew participants from 130 countries.
The New York strike is expected to attract thousands of people, and parallel strikes in DC, Boston, Seattle, Minneapolis, Miami, Los Angeles, and Denver may, too. But this is truly a global strike and it will be the movement’s largest yet, with 2,500 events scheduled across 150 countries. (The Global Climate Strike website has a searchable map showing all the events.) Millions in all may participate in the two strikes on the 20th and 27th.
Thunberg will be leading a demonstration at Foley Square starting at noon Friday in New York City, followed by a rally and march to Battery Park. The 1.1 million students in the city’s public schools have even been excused students to join the strike.
And it’s not just young people joining in. In Sweden, a group of senior citizens called Gretas Gamilingar (Greta’s oldies) is participating. Indigenous activists, labor groups, faith leaders, humanitarian groups, and environmental organizations like Greenpeace and 350.org will be there, too. Outdoor equipment company Patagonia said it will close its stores on Friday in solidarity with the strike. So is snowboard brand Burton. More than 1,000 employees at Amazon have pledged to join the strike.
With the UN Summit on Monday, this strike is aimed at getting countries to commit to tougher climate targets and faster transitions to renewable energy. Under the Paris agreement, countries agreed to work toward limiting global warming this century to less than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, but they set their own targets. At the time, the targets were not in line with the goal, but the expectation was that countries would gradually ramp up their ambitions in curbing greenhouse gas emissions over time. The upcoming UN summit is where countries are expected to present their new, more aggressive targets.
“I look forward to welcoming young leaders like Greta Thunberg, and many others,” said UN Secretary General António Guterres in a press conference last month. “I am telling leaders, don’t come to the summit with beautiful speeches. Come with concrete plans, clear steps to enhance nationally determined contributions by 2020, and strategies for carbon neutrality by 2050.”
However, greenhouse gas emissions are rising around the world, and the largest historical emitter of carbon dioxide, the US, is trying to leave the Paris accord.
Young people are inheriting a world racing toward climate catastrophe. They aren’t happy about it.
One of the most powerful themes of the strike movement is that the youngest people have the largest stakes in a world reshaped by climate change. And they are justified in feeling aggrieved by the lackadaisical approach governments and institutions have taken to the problem. – www.vox.com/
The Avaaz team writes: Millions of young people will walk out of their classrooms and take to the streets, in what will be the biggest youth climate action in history. And they’re asking us all to join them.
Not all of us will be able to go on a big march today. But wherever we are, whatever we’re doing, we can all join this historic moment for our planet.
Join the strike remotely! Organize family, friends, and colleagues to get together on Friday and take a moment to stand in solidarity with the young strikers. And if there’s no one around, take that time alone. After all, this whole idea started with Greta Thunberg protesting by herself.
Don’t forget to make a little placard 🙂
Take a photo of your strike, then share it on the Avaaz climate hub for all of us to see! It could just be you at home, or at your workplace, or outside — maybe in front of a public building in your town or city.
If you also upload your photo to social media, use the following hashtags: #ClimateStrike #ClimateHope
Leave a message of solidarity and hope to save our beautiful planet. Avaaz will share our photos and messages with key leaders as we ramp up pressure on them to pledge ambitious climate commitments
The Mayor of New York City has granted official permission for students to miss school for the strikes and join Greta on the streets. It’s brilliant — they’ll be marching right as leaders arrive in New York for the UN climate summit.
But making this huge in New York and other key cities across the world isn’t enough. We are facing a climate emergency, and in order to shift our economies to 100% clean energy, we need ‘everyone’ on board.
So join the action by showing your support for the strikers! It doesn’t matter how big or small — share your photos and messages for all of the Avaaz community to see. Let’s show that this movement of resistance to the climate emergency spans across every corner of the earth:
Our community has campaigned to stop climate change from the start. We’ve already spearheaded some of the biggest climate mobilisations in history, and we won’t stop until the day we save our planet from climate destruction. We know what must be done — now it’s up to people-power to make sure our governments listen.
With hope and determination, Christoph, Rewan, Morgan, Nataliya, Aloys, Bert, and the entire Avaaz team