Washington Post - Sarah Kaplan | Lauren Lumpkin | Brady Dennis
The strikes come three days before world leaders are set to gather at the United Nations on Monday for a much-anticipated climate summit.
Thousands of young people took to the streets of the nation’s capital demanding more action from world leaders to combat climate change. (Luis Velarde, Alice Li/The Washington Post)
NEW YORK — In one of the largest youth-led
demonstrations in history, millions of people from Manhattan to Mumbai
took to the streets around the globe on Friday, their chants, speeches
and homemade signs delivering the same stern message to world leaders:
Do more to combat climate change. And do it faster.
From
small island nations such as Kiribati to war-torn countries such as
Afghanistan, from small towns in Africa to major European capitals, and
across the United States, young people worried about the future that
awaits them left behind their classrooms to collectively demand that
governments act with more urgency to wean the world off fossil fuels and
rapidly cut carbon dioxide emissions.
“Oceans are rising and so are we,” read the sign that 13-year-old Martha Lickman carried through London.
“Whose
future? Our future!” shouted students from Montgomery Blair High School
in Silver Spring, as they made their way to protest outside the U.S.
Capitol.
“I hope the politicians hear us. They
don’t really seem to be doing anything,” said Albe Gils, 18, who skipped
high school to join the crowds of protesters in front of Copenhagen’s
copper-towered city hall.
Despite a monumental
turnout that stretched across every continent, it remains unclear
whether the high-profile demonstrations can fundamentally alter the
global forces contributing to climate change and compel elected leaders
to make the difficult choices necessary to halt the world’s warming. But
transformative change is precisely what those behind Friday’s marches
have demanded — including a swift shift away from fossil fuels toward
clean energy, halting deforestation, protecting the world’s oceans and
embracing more sustainable agriculture.
Friday’s far-reaching strikes, which spanned more than 150 countries, come three days before world leaders are
set to gather
at the United Nations on Monday for a much-anticipated climate summit.
U.N. Secretary General António Guterres has insisted that countries
bring with them promises of meaningful action such as vowing to reach
net zero emissions by 2050, cutting fossil fuel subsidies and ceasing
construction of coal-fired power plants.
The
summit will offer a key test of whether the world’s nations, which came
together to sign the Paris climate accord in 2015, can actually muster
the resolve to scale back carbon emissions as rapidly as scientists say
is necessary to avoid the worst effects of climate change.
On Friday, the resolve of millions of young people around the world was hardly in doubt.
A
growing amount of research suggests that young voters in democracies
are increasingly frustrated with political processes, which they feel
have failed to address their concerns, most notably climate change.
“I
have the feeling that politicians are often just [focusing on] the next
vote,” said 25-year-old student Jakob Lochner, who was attending the
protest in Berlin on Friday. “If you look around, there are so many
people on the street; there is kind of a social tipping point.”
In
Australia, where hundreds of thousands rallied in Melbourne, Sydney and
other cities, the impact of inaction on climate change and
environmental degradation has made young people lose “faith in our
leaders and decision-makers,” according to a UNICEF report this year.
Researchers examining the same phenomenon in Europe reached similar
conclusions. Almost half of all young European respondents said
in a recent survey that they had no trust at all in politics.
The climate strikes on Sept. 20 swept across many capitals three days
before world leaders gather at the United Nations for a
much-anticipated climate summit. (Luis Velarde/The Washington Post)
That frustration was palpable
Friday among the young protesters, who are part of a generation that
has become increasingly vocal in their demands that leaders take climate
change more seriously — and act more swiftly. The demonstrations came
more than six months after hundreds of thousands of students staged
a similar coordinated effort to demand urgent action on climate change, and the latest iteration was larger and just as fervent.
In
London, tens of thousands marched past 10 Downing Street and the Houses
of Parliament, some holding aloft signs that read “Winter is NOT
coming” and “I’m taking time out of my lessons to teach you.”
“We’re
doing our bit, eating less meat, using less plastic,” said Lickman, the
13-year-old demonstrator. “But it’s still on the government to do
something.”
After taking a solar-powered boat from England to New York to attend
the United Nations Climate Action Summit, Thunberg discussed what
activists need to do. (Jhaan Elker/The Washington Post)
Protesters in
climate-conscious Germany held more than 500 events to mark the global
climate strike on Friday, including a large demonstration at Berlin’s
Brandenburg Gate. The demonstrations in Germany come as Chancellor
Angela Merkel’s government faces increasing public pressure to take bold
climate action following heat waves and protests dubbed Fridays for
Future throughout the country.
As the
demonstration swelled, drawing citizens of all ages, Merkel announced a
wide-ranging package aimed at getting Germany back on track to meet its
climate targets. Berlin has pledged to cut its emissions by 55 percent
from 1990 levels by 2030. The package includes more than $60 billion in
investment in areas such as trains, electric vehicles and subsidies for
green buildings, according to German media.
In Moscow, Arshak Makichyan, a 24-year-old violinist,
staged a one-man protest
after the government rejected his application to hold a group
demonstration, the BBC reported. Russia, which has been hit hard by
climate change, ranks as the world’s fourth-largest emitter of
greenhouse gases after China, the United States and India.
In Brussels, the young and not-so-young protested with signs in English, French and Dutch.
“I
am here because we want adults to act,” said Caroline Muller, 13, who
has protested in the past. “It is time to do something.”
Back
in Washington, 35-year-old Allyson Brown pulled her 5-year-old daughter
out of school and headed toward the Mall, where she planned to join a
mass of other protesters and impart a lesson on how to push for change.
“This,” she said, “is education for today.”
Among
the largest, most high-profile protests Friday was the one in New York,
led by 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, who has
inspired the burgeoning protest movement with the solitary school
strikes she undertook outside her country’s parliament beginning last
summer.
Even
before the strike in Manhattan officially began Friday, Foley Square
teemed with colorful signs and shouting teenagers, and the swelling
crowd spilled into the surrounding streets.
“Climate change is not a lie, we won’t let our planet die,” the masses chanted.
“Our planet is not for profit!”
Organizer
Alexandria Villasenor, the 14-year-old who helped spark New York’s
climate strikes when she began protesting in front of the United Nations
10 months ago, smiled as she took in the teeming crowd.
“The
strike today is going to change the conversation [at next week’s U.N.
climate summit],” she said. “They have to listen to us now.”
Ultimately,
organizers estimated that more than a quarter-million protesters
crammed into Lower Manhattan. In Battery Park, a sweaty throng waited
beneath the fierce midday sun in front of a stage where Thunberg would
later speak.
The speeches from teenagers were fiercely critical of those in power, both in government and in the corporate world.
“Their
complacency is killing me,” said Isabella Fallahi, a young organizer
from Indianapolis, who said Democrats and Republicans are equally
culpable for the lack of climate action. “Both parties are guilty of
silence. Politicians don’t simply get a medal for believing in facts.”
Kevin
Patel, a fellow youth organizer from Los Angeles, leaned toward the
microphone: “You are either with us in this fight or you are against
us.”
Thomas Jimenez, 16, Lola Allen, 15, and Crystal
Lantigua, 16, juniors at Fort Hamilton High School, had raced to secure
a place in front of the stage.
“Adults have a
lot of opinions about our generation,” Jimenez said. “But I think we’re
strong and powerful. It blows my mind to see kids our age make such a
big difference.”
Behind him, a sea of handcrafted signs hinted at the sense of anger and frustration among his peers.
“You know it’s time for change when the children act like leaders and the leaders act like children,” read one.
“I’ll take my exams if you take action,” read another.
“Policymakers
don’t get it,” said Yujin Kim, a 17-year-old South Korean student who
had traveled to New York for a U.N. youth summit. “They’re not going to
be here in 30 years. And we are. We’re going to keep speaking out until
they listen.”
Organizers
said more than 1,100 strikes took place across all 50 states on Friday.
The strikes were planned largely by teenagers, in between soccer
practices and studying for math exams, but a growing number of adults
also have begun to offer their support.
New York
and Boston public schools granted students permission to skip school
for the strikes. For students in other districts, more than 600
physicians signed a “doctor’s note” that reads, “Their absence is
necessary because of the climate crisis.”
Numerous
companies, including Ben & Jerry’s, Patagonia and the cosmetic
company Lush, closed their doors in solidarity with the youth and
encouraged employees to attend the Friday’s strike.
After
hours of marching and chants and speeches, the sea of protesters roared
late Friday afternoon, as Thunberg herself finally took the stage.
“The
eyes of the world will be upon them,” she said of the national leaders
gathering next week at the U.N. summit. “They have a chance to take
leadership. To prove they actually hear us.”
She paused.
“Do you think they hear us?”
The crowd screamed back: “No.”
She smiled.
“We will make them hear us," Thunberg said, adding, "Change is coming. Whether they like it or not.”
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