activism
Global climate strike: thousands join coordinated
action across world
Rally to demand government action on climate crisis is
first worldwide since start of pandemic
Matthew
Taylor
Fri 24 Sep
2021 16.02 BST
Hundreds of
thousands of people in 99 countries have taken part in a coordinated global
climate strike demanding urgent action to tackle the ecological crisis.
The strike
on Friday, the first worldwide climate action since the coronavirus pandemic
hit, is taking place weeks before the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow, UK.
In Germany,
two days before the country’s general election, Greta Thunberg told a crowd of
more than 100,000 people that “no political party” was doing enough.
The Swedish
activist, whose solo strike in 2018 inspired the global Fridays for Future
movement, told cheering supporters they needed to keep up the pressure on
Germany’s political leaders past election day.
“Yes, we
must vote, you must vote, but remember that voting only will not be enough. We
must keep going into the streets,” she said.
Organisers
of the global event said there were protests in more than 1,800 towns and
cities around the world with large events in Europe, Africa and North and South
America.
In Mexico
protesters assembled in front of the National Palace in Mexico City to demand
that the state oil company Pemex present a plan to decarbonise, while in
Bangladesh activists demanded the scrapping of planned new coal and gas power
stations.
In South
Africa demonstrations took place in 12 cities as part of a three-day strike to
demand the government oversees a just transition from fossil fuels. In London
protesters gathered outside parliament to hear speakers call on the UK
government to do more to meet its climate goals. Large demonstrations were also
expected in Canada, Brazil and Argentina.
Earlier
this year the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said the world’s carbon
emissions must fall by half by 2030 to keep global heating below 1.5C above
pre-industrial levels, the limit countries agreed to strive for in 2015 in
Paris.
But the UN
reported on 17 September that current pledges from countries would lead to a
16% rise in the next decade.
There have
been some positive moves in recent days, with China saying it will end its
financing for highly polluting coal-fired power stations abroad – though not at
home – and the US doubling its climate finance to vulnerable nations. This
funding helps rich countries move towards delivery of the $100bn (£73bn) a year
promised a decade ago, which is seen as critical for the success of Cop26.
Russian climate protestor Arshak Makichyan is holding
his protest online because he fears it will be 'too dangerous' to be on the
streets in Moscow | Arevik Harazyan
Greta generation climate strikers look to regain
their momentum
Some have drifted away, but activists hope global
strike will get Fridays for Future back on its feet.
BY ZIA
WEISE AND KARL MATHIESEN
September
23, 2021 8:56 pm
https://www.politico.eu/article/climate-strikers-hope-to-recover-momentum-after-pandemic/
Youth
climate activists are hoping a return to the streets can help them recapture
the magic that fizzled during the pandemic.
After
lockdowns put a stop to the weekly gatherings inspired by Swedish activist
Greta Thunberg's first solo strike in 2018, local chapters of Fridays for
Future have scrambled for ways to continue the fight by other means.
Momentum
has been hard to keep up, activists say, and some have graduated from school or
moved on from active roles in the organization.
Still, many
now hope a global strike on Friday — one of the first to take place since
lockdowns were in place — will help the movement get back on its feet.
“We’re
using the strike as a kind of regeneration, a restart,” said Ariadne
Papatheodorou, 17, co-founder of the Fridays for Future movement in Greece.
She is
expecting a somewhat lower turnout on Friday, partly because of ongoing
pandemic restrictions. But the movement isn't starting "from zero,"
she said, even if "the hype around it unfortunately kind of disappeared
due to COVID."
“People
still have this topic very close to their hearts,” she said, particularly after
the wildfires that swept Greece this summer. “So many people are starting to
connect that with the climate crisis, that connection wasn’t there even two
years ago.”
Moving on
The
pandemic has meant that some activists who were most engaged at the start have
since stepped away.
When Mael
Blin was 14, the arrival of Fridays for Future in Trieste, Italy, was like
discovering an entire support network at a moment when he felt “really alone”
and frustrated that adults weren’t doing enough to protect his generation.
“I was a
lot into it,” he said, of his role as a press officer, “and then with the
pandemic the motivation, I think, dipped for everyone.” School closures also
made it hard to spread the word about what was going on, he said.
Now Blin is
17, exams are looming and his work as part of a city youth consultation group
on public parks has given him an outlet for what led him to climate activism in
the first place. No longer active at the core of the movement, he said he hoped
a new generation would get involved.
“I wouldn't
say I've left it, I still have a foot inside of it,” he said. “I still [keep]
in touch with the friends I've made from there. Fridays for Future was like a
way to meet, then we can see what happens from there.”
Asked if he
plans to march on Friday, he said, “Yeah, definitely.”
The politician
Some
activists decided that street protests are no longer enough.
“Perhaps
that was naïve, but I had hoped that we as Fridays for Future demonstrate for
one or two years and politicians will react,” said Jakob Blasel, 20, who helped
organize the first protests in Germany in late 2018.
Now, he’s
running for parliament as a candidate for the German Greens in the northern
state of Schleswig-Holstein. If current polls hold, he has a realistic chance
of winning a seat in Sunday’s election.
The moment
that pushed him into politics came in late 2019, when Germany’s government
passed a climate protection law “that completely ignored the reality of
ecological limits,” Blasel said. Germany’s top court this year ruled the law
unconstitutional.
“The next
election will decide whether we can stem the climate crisis,” he said. “So it
seemed only logical to become a candidate myself.”
He’s one of
a handful of climate activists to run in Sunday’s election. Some Fridays for
Future organizers, he acknowledged, had "mixed feelings" about his
decision. Some activists also voiced concerns about the movement’s political
independence or questioned whether real change could be achieved from within
the system.
“There’s
always the question of how to approach a problem. Some believe we won’t succeed
via parliamentary majorities. I see it differently: I think it’s important to
face up to democratic structures if we demand this much change,” Blasel said.
But Blasel
knows that in politics, unlike in activism, compromise is essential. While
Fridays for Future demand governments take urgent action to limit warming to
1.5 degrees above preindustrial levels, no German party program is compatible
with that target, even if the Greens come closest.
He’s
planning to keep up the pressure on the party — and, if elected, in the
parliament. “That can only succeed, and the Greens can only assert themselves
[within a coalition] if there’s continuous outside pressure,” he said. “And
that’s why it’s so important that people take to the streets again this
Friday.”
Never say die
For Arshak
Makichyan, staging a weekly protest in Russia was hard enough before the
pandemic. He had been fighting a running battle with Moscow’s police for years
— often striking on his own to get around anti-congregation laws.
Before the
pandemic, “it was dangerous, and people were afraid. But now it's almost
unbearable,” he said. Police started “using the pandemic as an excuse to do
whatever they want.” He was detained twice last summer and fined for his solo
street protests.
He dabbled
in politics during lockdown and hoped to stand in this week’s parliamentary
election, but his candidacy was rejected — he suspects because of government
pressure.
With the
election results set to be announced Friday, he won't be staging a climate
protest, he said, because it would be "quite dangerous" to be on the
streets. Instead, he and other Russian climate strikers will hold a “digital
strike” by posting photos of themselves online.
It's not
the same, of course, he said: "When you're striking on the streets you
feel that there is hope because you can do something and when you cannot strike
it's like: yeah, they stole our elections, they stole everything, and now they
steal our future. So it's quite frustrating for me and for other
activists."
Fresh air
Like many
school strikers, Papatheodorou has now graduated and is preparing to head to
university. But she’s convinced younger pupils will carry on striking.
“We see a
lot of people younger than us trying to get more involved. I think I speak for
all of us that graduated and are now in uni that we’ll support them as much as
we can,” she said. “But we’re also going to let them take the lead and go on to
other things. I know a lot of people are starting to get involved in
organizations or politics, for example.”
Papatheodorou
said she got engaged in other causes, including women’s health and refugee
education, during the pandemic while staying involved in Fridays for Future.
Many of her
peers did the same. That kind of branching out means the movement will face a
degree of transformation — a positive development, according to Papatheodorou.
“I think
that’s really nice, because it’s bringing a new air to the movement, which I
believe is needed after two years of COVID,” she said. “And it’s also letting
us continue with this movement and letting us grow in different ways.”
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