Story at a glance:
- A generation of youths is taking to the streets this Friday at more more than 1,400 locations.
- The U.N. secretary general admits the world has been failing climate commitments.
- Greta Thunberg will lead her famous Fridays for Future movement rally.
The global climate strike led by a generation of youths starts this Friday and is expected to take place at more than 1,400 locations.
Ahead of the United Nations’ Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow, which starts on Oct. 31, and ends Nov. 12, protesters around the world will draw attention to the climate crisis, The Guardian reported.
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On Tuesday, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres admitted that the world was “light years away from reaching our targets,” referring to how countries have failed to uphold climate change promises.
As Changing America previously reported, only one country is complying with the Paris Accord, a global initiative with the goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, and it is the smallest country within mainland Africa.
Furthermore, the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015 by 197 countries — almost every nation on Earth — yet only a handful of countries are somewhat close in complying with what they promised nearly six years ago: Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Kenya, Morocco, Nepal, Nigeria and the U.K.
The strikes are unique for featuring teenaged speakers like breakout climate star Greta Thunberg, whose solo strike in 2018 shaming politicians for not doing enough launched the global Fridays for Future movement. The latest protest comes two days ahead of a massive general election in Germany.
“The politicians aren’t doing anything,” Marcus Schmidt, 30, told The Washington Post, referring to the current German government. “I’m here to show that we have it in our hands now, to elect a government that perhaps finally changes something.
According to the Post, in 2018, Thunberg was in Berlin during an immense high turnout where voters determined Chancellor Angela Merkel’s reelection.
“Yes, we must vote, you must vote, but remember that voting only will not be enough. We must keep going into the streets,” Thunberg said back then outside the Reichstag parliament building.
Thunberg will address protesters in front of the Bundestag in Berlin, The Guardian reported.
“It has been a strange year and a half with the pandemic, but the climate crisis is even more urgent than it was before,” Thunberg said. “We will go back on the streets now to show that we have not disappeared and that we are demanding climate action and climate justice.”
“Change is going to come but it is going to come from the streets. We will make sure that this message is out there on the 24th,” said Luisa Neubauer, 25, from Fridays For Future in Germany, the Guardian reported.
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