at least 3 million people in today's #ClimateStrike
at least 3 million people in today's #ClimateStrike
Millions of students and other activists abandoned school and work on Friday to join mass protests calling for action against climate change before a UN summit.
From New York to Guatemala City, Sydney to Kabul, and Cape Town to London, protesters in hundreds of cities around the world took the streets, demanding their governments take urgent steps to tackle the climate crisis and prevent an environmental catastrophe.
"The preliminary numbers say there are at least 3 million people in today's #ClimateStrike And that is before counting North and South America," tweet Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teen, who was in New York to lead the climate strike ahead of the UN Climate Action Summit, which is slated to bring together world leaders to discuss climate change mitigation strategies, including the move from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources.
The demonstrations started in the Pacific Islands before quickly getting started across Australia, Asia, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and North and South America.
As Friday's day of action got under way across the scattered Pacific communities, students holding placards in Kiribati chanted: "We are not sinking, we are fighting."
Children in the Solomon Islands rallied on the shoreline wearing traditional grass skirts and carrying wooden shields.
In Canberra, the Australian capital, a 12-year-old primary school student told an estimated 10,000 people said she and her classmates had decided saving the planet was more important than classes.
"Politicians worry about us not going to school," said Alison. "But we're learning about the world, the danger we're in and what we can do about it. We know it's important to go to school and learn, but we know it is more important to save the planet for future generations to learn on."
Sixteen-year-old Elizabeth Whitbread attended the Canberra protest with a banner saying she was "hoping for a cooler death".
"I'm here because I want to live," she said. "We all have the right to the life we set out to have. I don't want to die young."
Acting Prime Minister Michael McCormack said students should be in school.
"These sorts of rallies should be held on a weekend where it doesn't actually disrupt business, it doesn't disrupt schools, it doesn't disrupt universities," McCormack told reporters in Melbourne.
"I think it is just a disruption," he added.
Australia's conservative government - while stopping short of outright climate change denial - has sought to frame the debate as a choice between jobs or abstract CO2 targets.
