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Global climate strike: Greta Thunberg and school students lead climate crisis protest – live updates | Global climate strike: Greta Thunberg and school students lead climate crisis protest – live updates |
(about 2 hours later) | |
Even Emmeline Pankhurst has joined in the protests in Manchester. A statue of the suffragette hero has donned a bright orange lifejacket and a placard that asks: “Ready for rising sea levels to reach this height?”The stunt was the idea of Katie Bradshaw and Ryan Griffiths, both 31, who described themselves as first-protestors who felt the need to act today.“Emmeline still carries that Mancunian spirit of standing up for what she believes in and great causes,” said Griffiths. “Climate change is so important and we think it’s something herself would be an issue she would be at the forefront of if she were around today.”Bradshaw added: “We’ve got to do our bit and even if it’s just putting some signs up and making people realise we need to look after our planet. If she was around today she’d be supporting it.” | |
Emmeline Pankhurst showing the world the way in Manchester pic.twitter.com/Z1TFjYCAuN | |
Friends of the Earth, an international network of environmental organisations in 74 countries, is calling on people across Britain to join young people in striking against climate change. | |
Muna Suleiman, a Friends of the Earth campaigner, said: | |
Most of us want to fix the climate crisis. And it can be done. But we need our politicians to act. Climate breakdown is already hurting people around the world, with many of those who have contributed least to the crisis being subjected to the harshest impacts. | |
“And right when we need our leaders to step up, they continue to let us down. From filling the skies with more planes, to backing fracking in the UK and funding oil and gas projects abroad. | |
“That’s why we’re standing shoulder to shoulder with young people to call on our politicians to deliver emergency climate action now. And we’re asking everyone to join us.” | |
Bob Dylan’s Blowin’ in the Wind kicks off Berlin’s “Klimastreik” to huge cheers from the thousands gathered, although no official estimates of the numbers attending are available yet.Contender for banner of the day is: ‘Grandpa what is a snowman?’ Hundreds of people are streaming through the portals of the Brandenburg Gate, through the Tiergarten Park and from every direction onto Platz des 18. März. | |
Lots of Berlin’s young are here with the blessing of their parents and teachers, though many have defied their schools to be here. | |
At 1pm, the student strikers are planning to let off alarm clocks across the UK, and are encouraging businesses to set off their fire alarms at the same time in support. Jake Woodier, the campaign co-ordinator at UK Student Climate Network, said: “Young people across the world have taken the lead in highlighting the need for urgent climate action over the past year. “They are calling for adults to join them for the global climate strike, just three days before the UN climate action summit to pressure our governments to act to tackle the climate crisis. “Raise the Alarm will help draw attention to the climate emergency in workplaces across the breadth of the UK,” Woodier said. | |
Students at Torquay Girls’ Grammar school have made a video about climate change. | |
What’s the carbon footprint of my trip? | |
The square outside Manchester’s grand central library has been taken over by a sea of people carrying homemade placards and chanting. Hundreds of those gathered sang “Whose planet? Our planet!” with scores of children among the protesters. Nellie Jacobs, 10, and her mother Helen said they were motivated to take part in the global climate strike after their hometown Whaley Bridge was evacuated earlier this month when it was deluged with months-worth of rain in a short period, causing a dam to burst and dozens of properties to flood. | |
Nellie Jacobs, 10, and her mum Helen felt compelled to be at the climate strike in Manchester after the serious flooding in their hometown Whaley Bridge this month pic.twitter.com/sNjlmRcXKb | |
Nice cartoon just in from reader Jesse Leonard. You get the picture, literally. Possibly the first time the climate crisis has been likened to a purple piano, but why not? | |
If there are any other artists out there with climate emergency sketches/drawings/cartoons, send them in via this link. | |
The Kichwa tribe in the Sarayaku region of the Amazon in Ecuador believe in the “living forest”, where humans, animals and plants live in harmony. They are fighting oil companies who want to exploit their ancestral land. A delegation of indigenous people are at the Paris COP21 climate conference to make sure their voices are heard. Can they win their battle? | |
Tweeting a photo from a climate strike, the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, said: | |
Young people here and across the world are making it impossible to ignore the environment and climate emergency.This is the wonderful youth #ClimateStrike in my constituency - now I'm on my way to the main London demonstration. pic.twitter.com/GI1AniUnpb | |
Kate Connolly, the Guardian and Observer’s Berlin correspondent, has been out this morning in the German capital. | |
Crowds gathering now at Brandenburg Gate. Lots of kids who are missing school, some with teachers’ blessing, many without pic.twitter.com/zcvOhYMM9U | |
Climate activist Robin Wood performing the most precarious feat of the day so far by hanging over the A100 Berlin motorway under the banner “clean cars - a pure lie” https://t.co/JbWxaIu0II | |
Strikes are planned for at least seven Nigerian cities, such as Lagos, which is clogged by mountains of toxic waste including thousands of tons of e-waste from the EU, particularly the UK and Germany. There will be a protest in Port Harcourt, capital of the country’s oil-producing region, whose residents and their possessions have been covered in soot for the past few years, believed to be the result of destroying illegal oil refineries. | |
There will also be two protests against a proposed coal plant in San Pedro in Ivory Coast, while in Ghana, a group called Young Reporters for the Environment is leading a march from the city hall of the capital, Accra. | |
Next Friday, there will be a demonstration in Kumasi, the capital of Ghana’s Ashanti region. Ghana is losing its rainforests faster than any other country, with a 60% increase in primary forest loss from 2017 to 2018. | |
In Senegal, there are marches in Rufisque and Thies this Friday, a climate camp in Kaolack on Sunday, followed by a demonstration against a new coal plant in Bargny, and a march in the capital, Dakar on the 27th. Air pollution in Dakar is causing more and more respiratory problems, in large part because of “dirty”, sulphur-laden diesel. | |
Environmental activists Greta Thunberg and George Monbiot have helped produce a short film highlighting the need to protect, restore and use nature to tackle the climate crisis. | |
Berlin’s main transport line, the S-Bahn, has virtually ground to a halt this morning due to a major engineering breakdown leaving many protesters stranded and unable to reach the protest. Participants are being encouraged to take their bikes instead. Many have pointed out the irony. | |
Meanwhile, at the Brandenburg Gate, scene of the main protest in Berlin that is due to kick off just before noon, protesters have been organised into neat blocks. | |
Apart from the huge crowds of protesters, the other uplifting piece of climate news today is that onshore wind has just became the cheapest source of energy in the UK. Industry analysts can’t believe how quickly the price has fallen. This shows the transition away from fossil fuels is much more affordable than people dared hope five years ago. On the business side of things, also encouraging to note efforts by companies with a green reputation, who seem to be competing to do more by selling less. The Patagonia outdoor clothing store will close all its European outlets today and next Friday so staff can join the protests. Ben & Jerry’s and Lush also shutting today. Burton, the winter sports chain, is giving workers a paid day off to join the strike and have halted online sales for 24 hours. The company’s webpage today reads “Closed for business. Open for action. Let’s protect our playground.” | |
In London, where big crowds are expected to gather near Westminster from 11am, the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, has thrown his weight behind today’s strikes. | |
He told the Guardian this morning he fully supports schools across the city who are “working with pupils and allowing them time, without sanction, to peacefully and lawfully join the strikes today”.“It is unbelievable that we need strike action for the future of our planet to be taken seriously by government’s around the world,” he said. | |
“I fully support the thousands of young people peacefully and lawfully protesting around the country today who feel so strongly about the climate change emergency and I share their frustration. The stark reality is we are running out of time for meaningful change. The climate crisis is one of the very biggest challenges we face – I have declared a climate emergency in London – and governments around the world are failing to take the action we need.” | |
Berlin has kicked off its Fridays For Future this morning with road blockades, cycle rallies and a demonstration in front of the cuboidchancellery of Angela Merkel, where about 40 young people have unfurled a banner asking: “Return of the climate chancellor?” | |
It’s an appeal to Merkel, once environment minister, to live up to the reputation she is seen to have squandered over everything from her support of the car industry to her refusal to back a phase-out of brown coal mining. | |
They are keen to pressurise her coalition government ahead of the launch of its much-awaited package of climate emergency measures which the cabinet has spent the night negotiating and is due to launch early this afternoon. The protesters are chanting: ”Wir sind hier, wir sind laut, weil Ihr uns die Zukunft raubt.“ –“We are here and we are loud, because you’re stealing our future”.The main protest at the Brandenburg Gate is due to start just before noon. | |
When there is protest in Berlin, there is usually also techno, and from 3pm a “Rave Rebellion” march will depart from Potsdamer Platz square, under the motto “No Future No Dancefloor”. Extinction Rebellion has announced plans to block traffic at strategic points “where it will hurt drivers” around the capital. | |
Elsewhere, 400 protests have been announced across the country, which will likely attracts adults as well as children. An umbrella organisation that includes organisations such as “Psychologists for Future”, “Entrepreneurs for Future” and “Grandparents for Future” has called for people to join in, as has the services union Verdi and the German Protestant Church. “We stand side by side with Fridays for Future”, said Annette Kurschus, the president of the Protestant Church of Westphalia, “Planet Earth does not belong to us, it has only been entrusted in our care”. | |
Germany has two faces when it comes to the environment: the country that prides itself in its high recycling rates, phasing out nuclear power and pioneering renewable energies is still the world’s sixth biggest pollutant, with 865m tonnes of CO2 emissions in 2018. | |
Borne out of this realisation, much of the recent debate in the country has focused on the phase-out of the country’s approximately 130 smoke-belching coal plants. The government wants to close them down by 2038 – too soon for many unions, especially in the coal-rich east, and too late for climate activists galvanised by Fridays for Future. In Europe’s “car nation”, air pollution through exhaust fumes is another contentious issue, with some cities having introduced driving bans for diesel cars last year. | |
The Fridays for Future protests have had a tangible effect on the political climate, with several polls earlier this year showing the Green party emerging as the strongest political force in the country. Many other parties have tried to copy its message, with even the arch-conservative Bavarian Christian Social Union calling for a coal phase-out by 2030, bans on plastic bags and new wind farms. Angela Merkel’s coalition government is expected to announce a plan for tackling climate change, rumoured to involve €75bn of investment by 2030, just in time for Friday’s climate strike. | |