NEW DELHI: An Indian student speaking as she participates in a global strike for urgent climate action in New Delhi on Friday — AFP NEW DELHI, May 24 (BBC): School students around the world have gone on strike to demand action on climate change.
Organisers expect more than one million young people to join the protests in at least 110 countries on Friday.
They are calling on politicians and businesses to take urgent action to slow global warming.
The strikes are inspired by student Greta Thunberg, who has become a global figurehead since protesting outside Sweden's parliament in 2018.
Carrying a "school strike for climate change" sign, the then 15-year-old said she was refusing to attend classes until Swedish politicians took action.
The solo protest led to various movements across Europe, the US and Australia, known as Fridays for Future or School Strike for Climate.
The last co-ordinated international protest took place on 15 March, with an estimated 1.6 million students from 125 countries walking out of school.
The action on Friday began in Australia and New Zealand.
In Melbourne, 13-year-old Nina Pasqualini said she was joining the strike because she was worried about "weather disasters".
"Every time we have huge a bushfire here another animal might go extinct," she told Reuters news agency.
Australia just had its hottest summer on record and climate change is seen as the cause of the increasing frequency and severity of droughts, heat waves, floods and the melting of glaciers around the world.
In 2018, global carbon emissions hit a record high and UN-backed panel on climate change last October warned that to stabilise the climate, emissions will have to be slashed over the next 12 years.
Earlier this month, a UN report warned that one million animal and plant species were now threatened with extinction.
© 2024 - All Rights with The Financial Express
