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News > Germany

Thousands Join World Climate Strike as UN Summit Approaches

  • Activists hold placards during a Global Climate Strike rally in Athens, Greece, Sep. 20, 2019.

    Activists hold placards during a Global Climate Strike rally in Athens, Greece, Sep. 20, 2019. | Photo: Reuters

Published 20 September 2019
Opinion

Protesters around the world are demanding their governments tackle the global warming issues now.

Thousands of people from all over the world took to the streets to join the "Third World Climate Strike" on September 20, a protest triggered by the Fridays for The Future (FFF) movement, which demands from governments concrete actions to resolve the ongoing environmental emergency generated by increased global warming.

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In Europe, Asia, Africa and Noth  America, hundreds of environmental, social, labor and human rights activists were hosting rallies in many cities throughout their countries. 

These demonstrations are taking place a few days before the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres opens the Climate Summit in New York on September 23, a high-level meeting in which countries were invited to present concrete and realistic plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45 percent in the next ten years.

In Brazil, a South American country where the burning of the Amazon has increased due to the auspices President Jair Bolsonaro provides for the transformation of rainforests into arable land, citizens carried out demonstrations in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Amazonas, Alagoas, Bahia, Amapa, Ceara, Federal District, Parana and Rio Grande do Sul, among other states.

"Deforestation caused by the devastating expansion of agribusiness, livestock, mining and pollution of rivers contribute to accelerate global climate change... Amazon rainforests deforestation is progressing at a rate of three soccer stadiums per minute," said the Brazilian Climate Coalition, which joins organizations such as Greenpeace, Fight for the Forest, Families for Climate, the Landless Workers Movement and the Worker's Party.

In Germany, 1,700 companies joined the climate strike by making it easier for their workers to attend the marches. The same happened at educational institutions where academic activities were suspended so that their students could go to demonstrations.

In the United Kingdom, hundreds of people took to the Westminster neighborhood in London, where the seat of the Government is located. With banners, slogans and songs, they demanded that the right-wing Prime Minister Boris Johnson put in place measures aimed at tackling the climate crisis.

"Young people and workers are coming out to say enough is enough. I'm proud to be joining London’s largest climate crisis mobilization to demand action," the Labor leader, Jeremy Corbyn, tweeted.

"This climate strike is inspiring - full of people who are demanding change to protect our planet and their future. Labor will honor that demand by kickstarting a Green Industrial Revolution."​​

This week, Greta Thunberg, the sixteen-year-old Swedish environmental activist whose actions were generated from the FFF movement, has participated in several public actions aimed at raising awareness about the environmental emergency.

On Thursday, for instance, she and a group of activists demanded that the U.S. Congress, which is the world's biggest emitter of gases and chemicals that foster climate change, take concrete action and show leadership to confront climate change.

On Friday, tens of thousands of people in Australia and South Pacific island nations also staged protests calling for urgent action on climate change.

Schoolchildren, teachers and parents gathered in Sydney holding placards that read "Time is running out," "Human change, not climate change", "There is no Planet B," and "If not now, when?"​​​​​​​

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