Youth-led global climate change protests

At the Philippines student strike (url includes video of strike)

HAPPENING NOW: #ClimateStrike in Manila supporting the call for #climatejustice!

Youth climate strikers and civil society organizations are calling on the Philippine government to hold major carbon emitters responsible for the #climateemergency we are in.

https://twitter.com/gpph/status/1200344310819934208

In Hong Kong many protesters took time out from protesting against Bejing's dominance to protest against climate change

In South Africa 

Demonstrator show their placards during climate change protest outside the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in Johannesburg, South Africa, Friday, Nov. 29, 2019.

Protesters in cities across the world staged rallies Friday demanding leaders take tougher action against climate change, days before the latest global conference, which this year takes place in Madrid. ...

Further rallies took place in Germany, Hungary, Belgium, South Korea, Poland, England, Turkey, Italy, Spain and France — where environmental protesters took a swipe at Black Friday. ...

In South Africa, a few dozen people holdings signs saying “Not Cool” and “Stop Pollution Now” protested outside the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in the summer heat of the Southern Hemisphere.

One protester lay on the ground faking death, holding a sign saying “Black Friday Reason to Grieve.”

Africa contributes least to climate change and is the least prepared to deal with it. Temperatures in parts of the continent are projected to rise more quickly than the global average.

“The reality is that we have a climate change emergency,” protest organizer Elana Azrai said. She noted water shortages in parts of the country amid a drought in southern Africa.

https://www.columbian.com/news/2019/nov/29/global-climate-protests-ahead...

Victoria BC also held a student strike for climate action on November 29th that focused on the Green New Deal and ending BC's LNG projects. 

 

Traffic was diverted along Blanshard Street on Friday as Victoria students marched in a climate rally: Nov. 29, 2019 (CTV News)

The rally began in Centennial Square at approximately noon before youth activists marched southbound on Blanshard Street towards the office of B.C.'s Ministry of Energy, Mines & Petroleum Resources.

Student activists say they are calling on the government to begin a structured transition into greener sources of energy so that the province can become less dependent on coal and liquefied natural gas (LNG). ...

"So this specific strike we're targeting LNG and the Green New Deal and right now, the B.C. government is putting millions of dollars into LNG projects that will lock B.C into decades of GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions and we have to stop that," said Victoria student Grace Sinats. "If we allow them to put this much money into projects that will destroy our planet, there is no hope," said Sinats.  ...

"There are now people that think they can have this energy transition in 10 years, well, be my guest," said van der Hoeven. "It's impossible."

"It's not only about energy transition, it's also about an economic transition and it's about a societal transition," said van der Hoeven. "You know, the biggest issue ... is there will be new winners and new losers. That means if people feel they are being left behind, they will be protesting because they are not going to accept this.”

Students at Victoria's youth protest said that while they are calling on the government to transition away from LNG, they were aware of the challenges that workers in the industry may face.

"Not only do we wish for LNG and fracking to have a smooth decline, but we need a just transition for all workers," said Victoria student Elliott Anderson. "If we just stop plain-out and there’s no training for workers to go to a new place, our economy will collapse and there's nothing we can do about it. We need a just transition so that workers can continue to sustain families and themselves," said Anderson. ...

"I feel like a lot of the time people can forget about the strikes pretty quickly," said Sintas. "Like it’s this big event and then not a lot happens. So, I feel like having regular strikes is really important to remind people that this is still an issue and it’s not going to be solved overnight."

https://vancouverisland.ctvnews.ca/student-activists-occupy-downtown-vic...

There  were 500,000 protesters at the climate strike in Madrid on Friday where the UN COP 25 climate change conference was being held. 

As Greta Thunberg and other activists spoke at a rally, an estimated 500,000 people took part in a climate justice protest in Madrid on Friday, December 6, 2019. (Photo: @GretaThunberg)

Before taking part in a 500,000-strong climate march in Madrid, teen activist Greta Thunberg spoke plainly yet forcefully Friday about the impact the global climate strike movement has had thus far and reiterated the demand of the climate justice movement for global leaders to act with the urgency the planet's ecological emergency mandates.

Speaking to reporters at the cultural center La Casa Encendida in Madrid, Spain—where COP 25 is underway—Thunberg called herself "just... a climate activist—a small part of a big movement" that needs even more activists to effect change. ...

"I sincerely hope that the COP 25 will lead to something concrete and that will lead to also an increase in awareness among people in general." She said she hopes that those in power "grasp the urgency of the climate crisis because right now it doesn't seem like they are. I know that we will do everything we can to make sure that this is something that cannot be ignored anymore, that they cannot just hide away anymore," Thunberg said. Some world leaders "are afraid of change," she said, but the status quo must be disrupted.

"Some people want everything to continue like now, and change is what we young people are bringing. And that's why they are trying to silence us. But that is just proof that we are having an impact, that our voices are being heard," Thunberg said, and is the reason powerful opponents "try so desperately to silence us." ...

Thunberg suggested that COP 25 may be viewed "as a kind of middle year," with next year's COP 26 seen as "the big event. But we cannot afford middle years," the Swedish teen said. "We cannot afford more days going by without real action being taken." COP 25, said Thunberg, mustn't be brushed off "because every chance we get to improve the situation we must take." ...

"We have been striking now for over a year and still, basically, nothing has happened," said Thunberg. "The climate crisis is still being ignored by those in power and we cannot go on like this. It is not a sustainable solution that children skip school." The strikers, Thunberg said, "don't want to continue. We would love some action from the people in power... because people are suffering and dying from the climate and ecological emergency today and we cannot wait any longer."

A lot has been achieved, added Thunberg. "We have have raised public awareness and we have created opinion and that is a big step in the right direction. But of course it's nowhere near enough. The CO2 emissions aren't reducing. They are in fact increasing," Thunberg continued, "so of course there is no victory because the only thing we want to see is real action and real action has not been happening. So of course we have achieved a lot," she added, "but if you look at it from a certain point of view we have achieved nothing."

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/12/06/even-500000-march-madrid-gr...

Indigenous youth from around the world are demanding action on climate change and social justice issues at COP 25 in Madrid. 

An activist speaks at a protest about the destruction brought by carbon markets and carbon offsets at the venue of the UN climate change conference (COP25) in Madrid, Spain, Dec.5, 2019.

A worldwide climate change movement is well underway, highlighted by strikes, protests and school walkouts increasingly led by young people. And this week in Spain, that message is being delivered by a diverse group of young, Indigenous people from around the globe to the United Nations. ...

“We’re realizing that our leadership ... is not taking the mandatory steps to save our future and [we have] to step into that position …" (Nanieezh Peter, 15, Alaska Federation of Natives convention, Fairbanks, Alaska)

Peter Nanieezh and his best friend, Quannah Chasing Horse Potts, 17, both Alaksa Native, successfully convinced their leaders to declare a climate change emergency in Alaska, the northernmost state in the US. Their request for the emergency declaration on the debate floor in a hockey arena in Fairbanks, Alaska, sparked a fervent and hours-long debate during the annual convention. 

Indigenous youth voices have historically been silenced in the fight against climate change. For many decades, if not centuries, Indigenous people in Alaska, Canada and elsewhere were forced to abandon their cultural heritage, traditions and in some cases, their homelands. Those who spoke out were often punished. But now, their grandchildren are finding a voice. 

On Thursday, Dec. 5, the Indigenous Climate Action Youth Delegation sent a letter to Canada’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Johnathan Wilkinson. The delegation is concerned that the international agreement on greenhouse gas mitigation, the Paris agreement, is “disproportionately focused on market-based climate solutions.” They wrote carbon-based markets “further enable the colonial legacy of dispossession, privatization, violence against Indigenous women and girls and destruction of Indigenous lands and culture for fossil fuel extraction.”

“Young people in this period of history, they’re no longer afraid to speak up, they’re no longer afraid of policy, they’re no longer afraid of the government, they’re no longer afraid of speaking their mind .... (Ben Charles, Inuit Circumpolar Council)

Ben Charles, who is also Alaska Native, and recently named an emerging leader by the Inuit Circumpolar Council, said, “Young people in this period of history, they’re no longer afraid to speak up, they’re no longer afraid of policy, they’re no longer afraid of the government, they’re no longer afraid of speaking their mind …" The international organization represents more than 180,000 Indigenous people in four Arctic nations. ...

Inuit aren’t the only Indigenous people represented at the meeting. Representatives of the Rapa Nui and Mapuche Indigenous Peoples of Chile are also in Spain for the meeting. SustainUS, an American nonprofit, has sent its first-ever delegation of Indigenous young people to Madrid.

In New Zealand, a group of young Maori adults who are indigenous to the region spent at least a month fundraising to cover their travel expenses to the UN Climate Summit. And on Friday, a group of First Nations kids will premiere a documentary film they produced about their first-hand climate change experience in northern Canada. 

https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-12-05/indigenous-youth-take-global-stag...

Greta Thunberg has won Time's Person of the Year Award, reflecting the growing impact of young people's demand for quick and strong action on global warming. 

"She became the biggest voice on the biggest issue facing the planet this year, coming from essentially nowhere to lead a worldwide movement," Time editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal told the show, adding that Thunberg is the magazine's youngest choice ever to be named Person of the Year. ...

Her initiative to strike galvanized students to protest against climate change throughout Europe and that momentum quickly fanned across the globe, becoming the “Fridays For Future" movement.

Her solo protest, Fensenthal noted, eventually prompted millions of people in 150 countries "to act on behalf of the planet."

He also said that Thunberg "represents a broader generational shift in the culture" — with youth standing up for what they believe in — from Hong Kong to Chile.

"Young people are demanding change, and urgently," Felsenthal said. "She embodies youth activism."

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/greta-thunberg-time-s-2019-person-y...

The Executive Director of Indigenous Climate Action, Eriel Deranger, discusses the protests at the Canadian embassy and at COP25 over Canadian pipelines and the proposed Teck Frontier oilsands mine in Alberta in the Democracy Now url video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BP1FHvcrBM8&list=PL0F1F946BD995C654&inde...

In the url below is a partial lists of student strikes around the world since 2018. The strikes began on 20 August 2018, when Swedish schoolgirl Greta Thunberg went on strike daily for several weeks, before switching to striking every Friday. The days of the largest strikes have been 15 March (over a million people), 20 September (4 million people) and 27 September (2 million people) and in Madrid on December 6th in response to the Madrid UN Cop25 Climate Change Conference (1 million +). 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_climate_strikes

Greta Thunberg and 21 other youth are attending the Davos summit that starts on January 20th to demand that the world shift away from fossil fuels. 

Greta Thunberg and fellow youth climate campaigners are demanding that global leaders immediately end the “madness” of huge ongoing investments in fossil fuel exploration and enormous subsidies for coal, oil and gas use.

The 21 young activists are also calling on the political and business leaders who will be attending the World Economic Forum in Davos to ensure investment funds dump their holdings in fossil fuel companies. ...

“Anything less would be a betrayal against life itself,” said Thunberg and colleagues in an article in the Guardian. “Today’s business as usual is turning into a crime against humanity. We demand that you play your part in putting an end to this madness.” ...

“Young people are being let down by older generations and those in power,” the climate strikers said. “To some it may seem like we are asking for a lot. But this is just the very minimum effort needed to start the rapid sustainable transition.”

Much of the world’s existing coal, oil and gas reserves must be kept in the ground to avoid the worst impacts of global heating. But investment in fossil fuel exploration and extraction remains high.

Since the Paris climate agreement in 2015, the world’s largest investment banks have provided more than $700bn (£535bn) to fossil fuel companies to develop new projects, with the total investment estimated to be trillions of dollars. Fossil fuel companies argue that their products will be used for many years to come and that they have a pivotal role in shifting the energy system to zero emissions. But their investments in green energy are tiny compared with those in fossil fuels.

Subsidies for fossil fuels also remain high despite a G20 pledge in 2009 to eliminate them. The IMF estimates such subsidies run at $10m a minute, or $5.2tn a year. “The fact that [ending investment and subsidies] hasn’t been done already is, quite frankly, a disgrace,” said Thunberg and colleagues.

Just 10% of fossil fuel subsidy cash 'could pay for green transition'

Investors managing funds totalling $12 trillion have already divested from coal, oil and gas, but the climate activists demand that “all companies, banks, institutions and governments immediately and completely divest from fossil fuels”.

Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, said in December that the financial sector was not cutting investments in oil and gas companies rapidly enough and warned that assets in the sector could end up “worthless”. He said in October that companies and industries not moving towards zero-carbon emissions would be punished by investors and go bankrupt.

“It ought to be in every company and stakeholder’s interest to make sure that the planet they live on will thrive,” said the climate strikers, who come from nations across the world, including the US, Australia, Brazil, Russia, India and Nigeria. “But history has not shown the corporate world’s willingness to hold themselves accountable. So it falls on us, the children, to do that.”

The agenda for the 50th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, which begins on 20 January in Switzerland, lists four “urgent and important” global issues. The first is “how to address the urgent climate and environmental challenges that are harming our ecology and economy”.

The climate strikers said: “The world’s leaders should invest their money in existing sustainable technologies, research and in restoring nature. Short-term profit should not trump long-term stability of life.”

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/10/greta-thunberg-tells...

At the World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland, young climate activists, including Canadian Autumn Peltier of the Anishinabek Nation, Greta Thunberg, Natasha Wang Mwansa from Zambia, and Salvador Gómez-Colón of Puerto Rico, criticized the economic and political elites for failing for their inaction on global warming. 

Michelle Lewis

- Jan. 11th 2020 9:00 am ET

Young climate activists including Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg told business and political elites gathered Tuesday at the World Economic Forum that they aren't doing enough to tackle the climate emergency and warned them that time was running out.

At a panel in the Swiss ski resort of Davos, climate campaigners expressed hope that their generation could work with those in power to bring about the change needed to limit global warming even as Thunberg - a vocal critic of leaders' inaction - said not enough has been done.

“We need to start listening to the science, and treat this crisis with the importance it deserves," said the 17-year-old, just as U.S. President Donald Trump was arriving in Davos, where he later gave a speech. Trump has pulled the U.S. out of the Paris accord to limit climate change and has traded barbs with Thunberg on social media.

"Without treating it as a real crisis we cannot solve it,” Thunberg said , adding that it was time to stop burning fossil fuels immediately, not decades from now. ...

Speaking in the afternoon, Thunberg brushed aside Trump's announcement that the U.S. would join the economic forum's initiative to plant 1 trillion trees across the globe to help capture carbon dioxide from Earth’s atmosphere.

“Planting trees is good of course but it’s nowhere near enough," Thunberg said. "It cannot replace mitigation," she added, referring to efforts to drastically cut emissions in the near term.

Thunberg accused leaders of "cheating and fiddling around with numbers" with talk of cutting emissions to 'net zero' - that is, emitting no more carbon than is absorbed by the planet or technical means - by 2050. ...

"My generation will not give up without a fight," she said.

Her views were echoed by other climate activists, such Natasha Wang Mwansa, an 18-year-old activist from Zambia who campaigns for girls’ and women’s rights. She told an audience in Davos that “the older generation has a lot of experience, but we have ideas, we have energy, and we have solutions."

Salvador Gómez-Colón, who raised funds and awareness after Hurricane María devastated his native Puerto Rico in 2017, said young activists are doing more than just talking.

“We’re not waiting five, 10, 20 years to take the action we want to see. We’re not the future of the world, we’re the present, we’re acting now. We’re not waiting any longer.”

Autumn Peltier, the chief water commissioner for the Anishinabek Nation of indigenous people in Canada, said plaudits are not what they are looking for at the World Economic Forum.

“I don’t want your awards. If you are going to award me, award me with helping to find solutions and helping to make change.”

Thunberg cited a report released in 2018 by the U.N.'s science panel that calculated the amount of additional carbon dioxide the atmosphere can absorb before global average temperature increases exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit). Leaders agreed to try to stay below that threshold when they signed the 2015 Paris climate accord, but scientists warn the chances of doing so are dwindling.

Thunberg noted that the remaining carbon “budget” to confidently meet that target stood at just 420 gigatons of CO2 two years ago, the equivalent of 10 years of global emissions. Even with a more optimistic calculation, keeping the global temperature rise below 1.5 C would require a massive reduction in emissions over the next two decades.

"These numbers aren't anyone's political opinions or political views," said Thunberg. "This is the current best-available science."

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/01/21/news/thunberg-slams-davos-el...

In response to the Lausanne trial victory for protesters that had occupied a Credit Suisse bank (see previous post for more details) and demanded it stop funding fossil fuel projects, Greta Thunberg addressed a protest in Lausanne on January 17th 2020, four days after the trial. The January 17th protest drew more than 10,000 demonstraters, according to the police, and occurred just before the World Economic Forum in Davos.

School strike week 74. Lausanne!#fridaysforfuture #climatestrike #schoolstrike4climate

LAUSANNE, Switzerland (Reuters) - Swedish activist Greta Thunberg marched with 10,000 protesters in the Swiss city of Lausanne on Friday and said "you have not seen anything yet" before some head to Davos next week to challenge the global financial elite to fight climate change.

The 17-year-old, who launched the #FridaysforFuture movement that has sparked worldwide protests, denounced a lack of government action to cut heat-trapping emissions before it is too late.

"So, we are now in a new year and we have entered a new decade and so far, during this decade, we have seen no sign whatsoever that real climate action is coming and that has to change,” Thunberg said in a speech in Lausanne.

“To the world leaders and those in power, I would like to say that you have not seen anything yet. You have not seen the last of us, we can assure you that. And that is the message that we will bring to the World Economic Forum in Davos next week.”

Protesters held signs including "Wake up and Smell the Bushfires" and "It is late but it is not too late".

Hundreds will take trains over the weekend and then march to Klosters near Davos, the annual gathering of world political and business leaders that Thunberg is attending for the second year in a row and will take part in two panel events.

Climate change and environmental destruction top the risks highlighted by global decision-makers in a survey ahead of the 2020 gathering of the global elite.

This year's meeting of 3,000 includes U.S. President Donald Trump who once described climate change as a "hoax" and whose administration in November filed paperwork to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement, the first formal step in a one-year process to exit the pact to fight climate change.

The latest World Economic Forum annual meeting takes place against the backdrop of some of Australia's worst ever bushfires. While the government there has avoided making a link to climate change, the fires have deepened public concern about the heating of the planet.

Last year was the Earth's second-hottest since records began, and the world should brace itself for more extreme weather events like Australia's fires, the U.N. World Meteorological Organization said on Wednesday.

“We are...an alliance that is organizing next week in 20 countries to say 'time is up' to the World Economic Forum in Davos. Time is up," a Kenyan activist, Njoki Njoroge Njehu, told the crowd in Lausanne.

https://www.thestar.com.my/news/world/2020/01/17/039you-have-not-seen-an...

In less than two years Greta Thunberg and the student-led strikes for climate change have accomplished a lot but now face new challenges in the age of COVID-19. The following articles discusses those successes and the challenges ahead as the Global Climate Strike scheduled for April 24th has been called off.  

Participants of a Fridays for Future climate demonstration parade through Hamburg, Germany on Feb. 21, 2020.

For more than a year, just about every Friday at noon, Invaliden Park in downtown Berlin was transformed into a vivacious, noisy, swarming hubbub with teenage speakers, bands, and live dance acts — as well as Germany’s top climate scientists — all sharing a makeshift stage and a microphone. ...

The happening was the weekly “school strike” in Berlin of Fridays for Future (FFF), the climate crisis movement that began in 2018 with the Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg skipping school once a week to protest her country’s half-hearted response to climate change. The movement then ricocheted across the globe, mobilizing school-age young people — in wealthy countries as well as poor — as never before. Last year, the campaign culminated in international demonstrations of millions in cities and towns from Cape Town, South Africa to Anchorage, Alaska, all with the same goal: to force their nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions and become carbon-neutral by 2050. ...

Fridays for Future can claim some significant achievements, including strongly moving public opinion in favor of climate action and helping Green parties in Europe make major gains in elections. Still, even before the coronavirus outbreak and the banning worldwide of gatherings and demonstrations, the momentum of Fridays for Future had slowed. Fewer young people were attending the weekly protests, and the movement was recalibrating its strategy and tactics, shifting to stepped-up election activities and direct-action campaigns against fossil fuel interests, with mixed success.

Now, the worsening coronavirus pandemic is forcing Thunberg and other leaders of FFF to further alter tactics. Fridays for Future in Germany and other countries has suspended all public demonstrations — until now the movement’s mainspring and source of its high-profile media image, as well as donations. “In a crisis we change our behavior,” Thunberg tweeted earlier this month, “and adapt to the new circumstances for the greater good of society.” The Global Climate Strike, an international demonstration scheduled for April 24, has been called off. ...

Thunberg’s tweets don’t hint at it, but the virus and the public lockdowns have thrown the movement — already struggling to build on its spectacular protests of 2019 — into confusion. How can it pressure governments or businesses when gatherings are banned? How can the movement attract media coverage in the midst of a global pandemic? Will ordinary people faced with children at home or sick relatives or no jobs care about the climate when the COVID-19 crisis has turned their lives upside down? And will countries now sideline climate protection in order to put all of their energy and money into fighting the pandemic? 

“Last year climate change was topic No. 1,” says Volker Quaschning, a professor of renewable energy systems at the University of Applied Sciences in Berlin, and one of the German scientists who had lobbied officials to take decisive steps to curb climate change. “Today it’s corona.” ...

Luisa Neubauer, the 23-year-old face of FFF in Germany, was a constant presence on talk and news shows during the height of the protests in 2019. Neubauer, who is often referred to as “Germany’s Greta,” told Yale e360 that the movement is in transition, adding, “We’re trying to figure things out now. Beating the coronavirus is the first thing we have to do, but the fight to save the climate can’t stop. It will continue in other ways and when this crisis is over the climate crisis will look different. We may even have a better chance. We know that political will, when it is there, can move mountains. We are experiencing this right now in the corona crisis.”

As for Thunberg’s call for digital activism, Neubauer admits that it can’t replace what FFF had accomplished on the streets. “But our generation and the climate movement are already digital,” she says, “and there are things we can do.” Already, the German branches of FFF have an internet learning program on YouTube for the millions of children not attending school.

FFF has unquestionably enjoyed major successes over the past year-and-a-half. The protests struck a chord with people who until then hadn’t taken climate change seriously enough to have it impact their vote or lifestyle. The movement was strongest in Europe, but even in the United States the protests caught on and helped propel the Green New Deal, a proposal for tackling the climate crisis in the U.S., high on the agenda of Democratic presidential candidates. Last September, 250,000 people across the U.S. marched in the FFF’s Global Climate Strike — the largest number ever to turn out for a U.S. climate protest. ...

Outside of the U.S., the numbers of those prioritizing global warming shot up dramatically in the wake of the FFF demonstrations, opinion polls and elections showed. Before the coronavirus, people in Europe and in China identified climate change as the foremost challenge. And many European Green parties, which had campaigned for rigorous climate policies for years, have doubled their vote tallies in local, national, and European Union elections — a result also of the extreme weather in 2018 and 2019 that brought record droughts, heat, and floods.

The FFF demonstrations “changed the whole landscape of the climate movement and the way ordinary people think about the climate crisis,” says Insa Vries of the German anti-coal group Ende Gelände, which had been occupying coal production facilities since 2015. “They were able to get through to much larger swaths of the population than we ever could, including unions, established NGOs, older people, and the world of pop culture.” ...

Despite these achievements, the outbreak of the coronavirus has found Fridays for Future in a period of soul searching and experimentation. The group’s leaders were growing disappointed with FFF’s concrete results, most notably that the protests had not prodded governments to respond with the resolute, far-reaching measures that would enable them to meet the goals of the 2015 UN Paris Agreement, which would hold global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius below pre-industrial levels.

A seminal moment for the German FFF movement came on September 20, 2019, when in the largest climate demonstration of the year, tens of thousands of protestors clogged Berlin’s city center, and more than a million more took to the streets in 500 other German cities and towns. As the Berlin demonstration unfolded, just a stone’s throw away at the offices of German Chancellor Angela Merkel the government announced its long-awaited climate policies package. But the proposals fell far short of the students’ demands, which were that Germany set policies that would end coal use by 2030 and generate 100 percent of the country’s electricity with renewable energy by 2035. The activists had also demanded a tax as high as 180 euros-per-ton of CO2.

“It was bizarre, scandalous, how bad it was,” says Neubauer about the German climate protection package, which proposed a mere 10 euros-a-ton tax on CO2. “Despite all of the demonstrations and lobbying, what came out wasn’t even an attempt to meet the Paris Agreement. ...

The Germans weren’t the only climate activists rethinking things in the face of tepid government action. “We concluded that school strikes alone aren’t going to make governments change anything,” explains Vipulan Puvaneswaran of France’s Youth for Climate, the French ally of Fridays for Future. “We need a more radical change — the system has to change — and for that we need more radical protest forms.” In February, the group briefly occupied the Paris offices of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, covering its walls with graffiti.

The Germans, too, shifted course, moving away from school strikes to the targeting of businesses and intervening in election campaigns. “Businesses are more flexible, they can change faster than states,” says Neubauer. “They have to step up and help us make governments change.” ...

FFF Germany set its sights on the multinational giant Siemens, which had recently invested in a new Australian coal mine — a small investment for Siemens, but a tempting target for the climate activists. ... 

Siemens CEO Joe Kaeser, who met one-on-one with Neubauer. Media coverage was intensive for a week, but in the end Siemens opted to proceed with the project.

“FFF has managed to mobilize enormous numbers of people and create a big buzz,” says Vries of Ende Gelände, “but we come out in the end empty-handed. Maybe we have to rethink how we pick our fights.” ...

FFF has enjoyed more success in targeting elections, which has greatly benefitted Europe’s Green parties. “Green parties across Northern Europe have been given an unbelievable push,” says Ellen Ueberschär of the Heinrich Böll Stiftung, a German foundation close to the Green Party. In polls, Germany’s Greens have tripled their tally since the 2017 general election, turning the Greens into the country’s second-largest party.

Now, however, FFF’s path forward is unclear. If the movement is denied street demonstrations for months, it may find its resources drying up and activists demoralized. “I’m worried that their anger and frustration, which had generated so much positive energy, will turn into hopelessness,” says Ueberschär. “At best, what can happen,” says Neubauer, “is that we turn the crisis experience into a crisis management experience. Because we are now tackling [the coronavirus] collectively, in solidarity and sustainably, we can learn how to cope with others. This can be helpful for the climate crisis.”

https://grist.org/climate/shifting-gears-the-climate-protest-movement-in...

Below are stories about some of the climate change youth activists from MAPA (Most Affected People and Areas) countries around the world leading this new wave of climate strikes. Not accidently they all are from developing countries. 

Youth climate activists from MAPA countries (Most Affected People and Areas) are sharing their first hand experiences of confronting the climate crisis in their countries and their expectations and plans for the September 25th strikes. Here are some of the powerful voices you can expect to hear from this September:

Mitzi Jonelle Tan – Manila, Philippines

I am Mitzi Jonelle Tan from Manila, Philippines, lead convener of Youth Advocates for Climate Action Philippines (YACAP). ... In 2017, I was integrating with the Lumad indigenous people, and one of the leaders told us about how they were being displaced, harassed, and killed just for protecting their lands and the environment from extractive mining companies. The simplicity of how he said, in passing, that there is no choice but to fight back and become activists made me realise that individual lifestyle change was not enough. Since then I have been very passionate about demanding climate justice — particularly in the context of places like the Philippines, which is disproportionately impacted by the climate crisis and is always part of the top three countries most dangerous in the world for environmental defenders.

Why are you striking? The Philippines is the 2nd most vulnerable country to the climate crisis, yet our contribution to the global greenhouse gas emissions are minimal. With this planetary emergency, common sense would dictate that climate be at the top of the agenda and those already protecting the environment would be listened to. Instead, we have no concrete climate plans, and our environmental activists and defenders are being killed, harassed, and displaced. The wilful ignorance of world leaders is pushing us all to become climate activists, pushing us all to strike for justice. I am an activist because of my deep love for the people and the environment, a love that binds me to the movement calling for climate and social justice.

What action would you like to see on climate in 2020? In the Philippines, we need to declare a people’s defined climate emergency and impose a moratorium on any new dirty energy projects. We then need to start developing and prioritizing research and development into renewable energy and consulting with the people, especially the workers, on how to begin our just transition. Empowering the youth and those most vulnerable with knowledge is also a key part in ensuring active citizen participation in climate policy building.  ...

Eyal Weintraub – Buenos Aires, Argentina

My name is Eyal Weintraub, I’m From Buenos Aires, 20 years old and one of the founders of Jóvenes por el Clima Argentina (Youth for climate Argentina). Currently, climate change does not affect me and my individual standard of living in any significant way.  I am a white, middle class male from the capital of Argentina. I am extremely privileged. That is another of the most devastating aspects of climate change. It affects in much greater numbers those who are already socially vulnerable. Climate change hurts most those who have contributed to global warming the least. That is something extremely important to consider when we talk about climate justice. Climate justice is not only mitigating the amount of CO2 levels we produce to prevent future damage, but also to provide adaptive measures for those places where it is already being felt and reparation for those affected.

Why are you striking?  In a country like ours where you have 50% of the population living below the poverty line it is not enough to speak in abstract about the climate crisis. It is necessary to find ways to directly relate it with the hardships and struggles that we suffer daily. I strike so that the government and corporations take direct action regarding the mitigation and adaptation of the climate crisis, before it becomes the worst crisis in the history of humankind.

What action would you like to see on climate in 2020? If there is one thing the Coronavirus pandemic has proven, it’s that governments have the ability to initiate drastic measures to avert catastrophes when necessary. The climate crisis is just as serious as this new global pandemic and yet we are not doing what is required to lower greenhouse emissions by 50% for 2030. ...

Disha A Ravi – Bangalore, India

I’m Disha A Ravi, co-founder of Fridays For Future, India. My motivation to join climate activism came from seeing my grandparents, who are farmers, struggle with the effects of the climate crisis. At the time, I wasn’t aware that what they were experiencing was the climate crisis because climate education is non-existent where I’m from. Only when I did my research, did I find out about it. Millions of people are affected by the climate crisis every single day but no one talks about it. I wanted to change that.

Why are you striking? I’m striking because we’re living through the climate crisis. Heavy rains and lax measures taken by governments have led to millions of people being displaced because of floods, particularly in India. My house was flooded last week and there are multiple different impacts – my city is expected to run out of underground water by the end of the year. The climate crisis is our reality, we’re striking for our survival. 

What action would you like to see on climate in 2020 Aiming to stay below 1.5 C is not enough. 1.5 C is still harmful for several countries, we need to work on a just transition and a just recovery from this. We have the resources to make this happen, what we need, above anything else is political will to make it happen! 

Kevin Mtai – Eldoret,  Kenya

I am a climate activist and environmentalist from Soy, Kenya. I am the Africa Continental Co-ordinator for Earth Uprising, member of Global children’s Campaign and a Campaigner for Climate friendly food at the UN Climate Conference.

Why are you striking? I am striking for a future for myself and my peers.... Recently, East Africa has experienced all kinds of effects of climate change like an invasion by a desert swarm of locusts, windstorms, a severe drought, landslides and floods due to huge rainfall. If we see global temperature rise much further, the consequences will be unimaginable.

What action would you like to see on climate in 2020? I would like to see world leaders understand and follow what science says we must do. They must believe scientists and adjust their policies accordingly. Covid-19 has shown us that politicians can treat a crisis like a crisis if they want to, and that we have the capacity to repair our earth.

Laura Verónica Muñoz – Bogotá, Colombia

I am Laura Verónica Muñoz. I am an audiovisual and multimedia communicator, and a climate activist with Fridays for Future Colombia and PactoxElClima. I hope more people will join the movement for climate action in Colombia. I am also convinced that more female representation is needed in the political, economic, scientific, business and academic spheres, to be able to build more sustainable and resilient solutions to climate change.

Why are you striking? The climate crisis needs everyone’s action, but it also needs justice. Climate change is an environmental and social problem that, although it affects all people, does not affect them equally. Those who are feeling and will feel the impacts of the climate crisis most strongly are those who bear the least responsibility in the matter.

What action would you like to see on climate in 2020? I would like to see a just recovery that works to close the giant gaps that exist in terms of health, education, economy and gender. Without this, there is really no climate justice because many people would continue to be left behind.

Nicole Becker – Argentina

I am 19 years old, a student, and a climate activist from Buenos Aires, Argentina. When I started to understand that climate change is a social issue, and not just an environmental one, I co-founded Jóvenes Por El Clima, a movement that talks about climate change from a Latin American and human rights perspective. In 2019, we successfully pushed to have the country declare a Climate and Ecological Emergency and to sanction the first Climate Change Law. In March 2020, I was selected as one of the Escazú Champions, with the aim of ratifying the Escazú Agreement and I spoke in the Argentine congress to demand climate action. I was also selected by the Argentine Congress as one of the most outstanding women in the country because of my role in creating the climate movement.

Why are you striking? I am striking  because I believe this is the best way to show that there are millions of us who demand climate action, and that it is our greatest tool to raise our voice. Argentina and my entire region are on fire, and this is the future that world leaders are leaving to my generation. My country is suffering a huge economic crisis and due to Covid-19, more and more people are in a situation of poverty, so they don’t have the resources to face the impacts of the climate crisis. 

What action would you like to see on climate in 2020 In Argentina, wetlands represent 25% of our national territory, however, there is no law that regulates them. #LeydeHumedalesYa is one of our greatest demands. On the other hand, at the regional level, the most important thing is that the states commit to putting out the fires and ratifying the Escazu agreement...

https://globalclimatestrike.net/global-youth-climate-strikes-are-back-me...

Sofía Gutiérrez, an 18 year old Columbian, talks about why the relationship between climate change, income inequality and violence in her country prompted her to take action with regard to climate change. 

It wasn’t until last year in August, when part of my country’s rainforest was being burned down, that I found shelter in climate activism. That is when I created a movement to connect youth with NGO’s, so they’d knew how to be part of the change. Thanks to the movement, I started going to climate strikes, and getting to know the climate activists in my city. I helped organize three climate strikes in my city.  

My country has some of the highest inequality rates in the world, and Colombians were tired of it. In October, we faced a social crisis that held endless protests across the country, but specially in my city – Bogotá. Social causes from education to environment, fought together to demand just action from the government. I was part of some of the protests. I suffered from police abuse. And that is when I understood that my country could not move forward in environmental matters, if we did not even have education.

Being part of the massive protests in my country made me realize the magnitude of the relation between climate change and social issues, as I was able to listen first hand to the people that suffer first the climate change impacts in my country. And I was aware that violence in my country has built the society I live in -from the conquest to the armed conflict. But, it was not was until I decided to speak that I feared for my life, and I knew what I was getting myself into. I may have the privilege to live in the city and have some kind of “security” that social leaders lack, but with that privilege I decided to raise my voice, for all of those that had died doing the same thing in my country. I grew up with the stories of my granny telling me how she and her family had to move to the city so they wouldn’t get killed due to the violence in my country. I don’t want to continue telling the same story. That’s why I raise my voice, so defending the lives in my country doesn’t mean you have to put yours at risk

That is when I took a different path with my activism, I started listening, and then I had the chance to be part of three national dialogues with my government regarding fracking, the Declaration of Climate Emergency and educational matters. I introduced myself to politics, putting my fears of public speaking aside, I worked with my local and national government, and I decided that I would fight for the access to quality environmental education.

Nowadays, I am part of a youth organization called Pacto X el Clima, where I created the environmental educational program, and since last year in November I have been teaching workshops to different audiences (specially youth). With my activism I look forward to make a change in the society I live in, and with that make a better world out of it, that is why I joined Fridays For Future, to keep learning how to make a change, and to tell my country’s story.

https://globalclimatestrike.net/why-i-raise-my-voice/

Minh Nguyen talks about what it's like to protest in Singapore, where any kind of protest, let alone a climate strike, is suppressed. 

In Singapore, public assemblies and processions by even a single person requires a police permit. Unlike other countries which protect the right to protest on public grounds, Singapore actively restricts such demonstrations. It turns protesting from a right into a closely monitored privilege. The police don’t particularly need a reason to deny a permit. So instead of “it’s your right”, the question is “will it be non-offensive enough to be approved?”. 

But it’s not the law that stops protests in Singapore. It’s self-censorship. Every country considers itself unique and in Singapore, protests are seen as something that just can’t happen. Singaporeans associate protests with Hong Kong and how Singapore could never handle chaos that will destroy its economic prosperity. As for school strikes, that’s even more taboo. Academic success is the greatest priority of any young Singaporean, at least according to Singaporean parents. Protesting is not something students do, period. Singapore’s last student strikes occurred in 1974, and the organisers are still in exile.

You might be wondering: If I knew all this, how did I eventually end up holding a sign and being questioned for ten hours by the police?

Like many activists, I did it because someone else did it first. On March 13 2020, J-Min, an 18-year old high school student held a piece of paper that said “Exxon Kills Kittens” outside ExxonMobil’s offices and posted it online as “Fridays4FutureSG”. For context, “FridaysForFutureSG” was taken by at least two other groups, both of which were inactive.

Later that day, I messaged her and we spent the next week co-founding Fridays4Future SG. I went out with a sign a week later. I figured that whatever happened, the movement could not stop at just one person. That one person should not face this alone. If so, every potential climate striker in Singapore would learn about what happened to the first climate striker, and they’d whisper to themselves that protesting for the environment is dangerous. That protesting destroys your future career prospects, which is the most important thing in Singaporean society. Then they’d repeat that idea to everyone else they know. And thus, a self-fulfilling prophecy that protesting for climate change never happens in Singapore. Singaporean activists have a term for it: Killing the chicken to scare the monkeys. ...

But if it wasn’t just one person. If there was a second. And a third. And a tenth. If there were Singaporeans who see the immense threat that climate change poses to everyone’s future. That although it may seem like Singaporeans don’t care about climate change, some are willing to stand up for it despite the risks, real and perceived. That if you do it, there are others alongside you.

In my case, there’s been about two hundred people since last week. After my investigation was publicised, a local activist named Jolovan Wham held up a smiley face sign in solidarity. On May 24, he was called in for questioning. Since then, hundreds of Singaporeans have posted photos of themselves holding smiley face signs, tagging #smileinsolidarity and asking the question: why was holding a smiley face sign even worth investigating? Two petitions have been drafted, one calling for an end to the investigation and another calling for loosening of restrictions on public assembly. 

Honestly, I don’t know where all this leads. I just knew that I couldn’t stay silent about climate inaction. That when I was sixty years old and watching the news about the latest wildfire, flood or typhoon, a child would ask me what climate change is. And then they’d ask me why no one did anything. I couldn’t look them in the eye and tell them, as adults tell me now, that we couldn’t.

https://globalclimatestrike.net/it-starts-with-one-person/

Saturday October 24th 12-2 PM EST

Webinair on energy transitions and climate justice organizing keeping in mind local and international implications of these movements: 

Speakers 

Seth Klein

Meryam Haddad

Gabrielle Fayant

Ana Julia Aneise

Axell Sutton

Byranna Rose Brown

Michelle Marcus

Fridays For Future Student Strike for Climate Action

Wednesday, December 9, 2020 at 4:00 PM – 8:00 PM UTC-04

Grand Parade (Halifax)

Halifax, NS, Canada

Here's more on the Mock COP 26 conference where young climate activists demanded "jail terms for people who harm the planet".

 

Young delegates thrashed out a climate treaty at a virtual conference, which they hope governments will implement (Picture: Getty/MockCOP26)

Once again, our young people are showing us how it’s done. COP26 may have been postponed by our political leaders until 2021 but the younger generation know better than anyone that the Climate & Ecological Emergency can’t be postponed. So they are carrying on with their own COP26 this November regardless of dithering by our World leaders.

Students Organising for Sustainability (SOS-UK) is working with other student-led groups around the world to arrange their own inclusive Worldwide, online Mock COP 26 this November. We Have the POWER is delighted to be the first funder of the only COP26 which is currently planned to take place on the original November 2020 dates.(https://wehavethepower.org/mock-cop-26/)

Hundreds of young people from across the world are demanding that ‘ecocide’ becomes recognised as a crime for those who damage the environment.  The call forms part of a treaty that the youngsters thrashed out at a virtual summit on climate change aiming to pressurise world leaders, after a major conference was delayed.

They accused older decision-makers of being ‘shackled by political short-termism and national self-interest’, claiming that they had instead prioritised ‘science, optimism and ambition’. They also want politicians to ensure young people are given comprehensive teaching on the climate, based on the best science available. 

The two-week youth event, called ‘Mock COP26’, has seen 330 delegates from 140 countries agree the formal treaty and 18 environmental policies they say world leaders should adopt. It comes after COP26, due to be hosted by the UK in Glasgow, was postponed by a year because of coronavirus – a move criticised by the Mock delegates, who are aged 11 – 30.

https://metro.co.uk/2020/12/01/young-climate-activists-want-jail-terms-f...

The url below contains a video of the Mock 26 conference closing ceremony on December 1 detailing their demands:

Ontario teen Malaika Collette, top row, centre, worked with 17 other youth from around the world to organize a virtual climate change conference called Mock COP26. (Submitted by Malaika Collette)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBbw2uJQSHQ

Aristotleded24 wrote:

jerrym wrote:

The url below contains a video of the Mock 26 conference closing ceremony on December 1 detailing their demands:

Ontario teen Malaika Collette, top row, centre, worked with 17 other youth from around the world to organize a virtual climate change conference called Mock COP26. (Submitted by Malaika Collette)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBbw2uJQSHQ

Ah yes, dutifully moving all of our activities online because our Masters tell us that we need to "stay safe." That way the ruling class does not feel the heat from large crowds in the street, and the rulers can continue to do as they please. Give them enough time, they will flick a switch on the Internet so that even these online events will not be allowed.

Do you think that sounds crazy? Ask any Chinese dissedent how successful their attempts at organizing on the Internet have been. The Chinese government, along with Big Tech companies based in Silicon Valley, have been working together to supress Internet-based citizen uprisngs in that country for decades. It's coming here soon. The urgency do deal with "covid misnformation" is being used as a pretext to soften our tolerance for that kind of censorship.

You see everything through a blind single-minded perspective. As David Suzuki said "“What will drive this, especially toward the next election, are kids. They are learning in school about climate and many of them are scared stiff, they’re thinking they are not going to live to old age,” he said. “Others are saying: ‘Don’t tell me how bad it is, tell me what I can do about it.’ ”

There isn't even a UN climate change conference this year. These young people had enough ingenuity to organize a global internet conference mocking the failure to act in order to bring attention to the issue, while you sit at a computer and bitch at them. Even if they feel safe from Covid because they are young, they have parents and grandparents that many of them don't want to bring Covid-19 home with after a demonstration, especially for those coming from underprivleged groups and countries where they often have no choice but to live in very crowded conditions and often with elderly relatives in an extended family.

Instead of bitching about what these young people have done about climate change, why don't you organize a climate change protest of all of your gung-ho friends who feel their rights have been violated by Covid-19 restrictions. Or is all you are going to do is complain about your rights being violated by Covid restrictions as the world continues to bake in the global warming oven?