Friday, March 25, 2022

Fridays For Future school climate strikes resume worldwide

Hundreds gather and hold up signs in Pershing Square as part of the Global Climate Strike in Los Angeles on September 20, 2019. The Fridays For Future school climate strikes resumed worldwide Friday.

File Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo


March 25 (UPI) -- Friday marked the resumption of worldwide school climate strikes by young activists intent on sparking action to deal with causes of climate change. Hundreds of protests were expected on all seven continents.

On its website, Fridays For Future posted a map of planned protest actions.

"The catastrophic climate scenario that we are living in is the result of centuries of exploitation and oppression through colonialism, extractivism and capitalism, an essentially flawed socio-economic model which urgently needs to be replaced," Fridays For Future said in a statement on its website.

Many of the Fridays For Future actions in Europe were also tied to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

"Colonizers and capitalists are at the core of every system of oppression that has caused the climate crisis," Fridays For Future said, "and decolonization, using the tool of climate reparations, is the best kind of action."

Fridays For Future is a youth-led climate strike movement that started in August 2018 when then-15-year-old Greta Thunberg began a school strike for climate in Sweden.

She says young people are demanding a safe future.

Friday's school climate strikes started in New Zealand.

Fridays For Future tweeted a video of the New York City protests and other actions happening around the world.

Demands of the school climate strike activists include keeping the global temperature rise below 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels, ensuring climate justice and equality, and listening to the best science when it comes to climate action.

Activists stage global climate protest, slam Ukraine war

By FRANK JORDANS

PHOTO ESSAY 1 of 22
Demonstrators of the Fridays for Future movement march in downtown Rome, Friday, March 25, 2022. Climate activists staged a tenth series of worldwide protests Friday to demand leaders take stronger action against global warming, with some linking their environmental message to calls for an end to the war in Ukraine. (Mauro Scrobogna/LaPresse via AP)

BERLIN (AP) — Climate activists staged a 10th series of worldwide protests Friday to demand that leaders take stronger action against global warming, with some linking their environmental message to calls for an end to the war in Ukraine.

The Fridays for Future movement, inspired by Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, called demonstrations from Indonesia to Europe and the United States.

In Jakarta, activists dressed in red robes and held placards demanding “system change not climate change.”

Others held a banner saying “G-20, stop funding our extinction,” a reference to the fact that the Group of 20 biggest developed and emerging economies accounts for about 80% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Indonesia hosts the group’s next summit this fall.

In Rome, protesters carried a giant inflatable globe through the streets and a banner reading “Make school, not war.”

Some 300 protests were planned in Germany, which has taken in about 250,000 Ukrainian refugees in the past month.

Thousands of mostly young people, many carrying Ukraine’s yellow and blue national flag, marched through Berlin’s government district to the Brandenburg Gate — long a symbol of the Cold War division between East and West.

Those speaking at the Berlin rally included two young Russian activists, who denounced their government’s actions in Ukraine.

“There are a lot of Russian people who are against (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, and they do not support what Putin is doing,” Polina Oleinikova told The Associate Press.

Oleinikova, 19, said that people who speak out against the government in Russia now “risk to be imprisoned on a daily basis.”

“It is very scary and we are afraid, but still we are (doing) our activism because we feel that it is very important,” she said. “It is the right thing to do and we won’t stop.”

Fellow climate activist Arshak Makichyan said the war in Ukraine and the sanctions imposed on Russia by the West were also having a drastic impact on the Russian economy

“Everything we had is collapsing,” he said, adding that he hoped Putin would be forced to resign and brought to trial.

Ilyess El Kortbi, a 25-year-old who helped set up Fridays for Future Ukraine, praised his fellow activists from Russia for speaking out.

“They are doing the best they can,” he told the AP. “Even if their regime is authoritarian and really repressive, they still continue standing with us against Putin.”

El Kortbi, who managed to flee just before the Russian advance reached his home city of Kharkiv, appealed to Germany and other European countries to stop buying fossil fuels from Russia.

“The war in Ukraine could stop anytime,” he said. “The EU and especially Germany just need to stop financing this.”

That message was echoed by many Germans at the march, frustrated that their country is paying tens of millions of euros (dollars) a day to buy fossil fuels that contribute to Moscow’s war chest even as the burning of oil, gas and coal harms the planet.

“We are here today to show that peace and climate justice belong together,” said Clara Duvigneau, a student from Berlin.

She said Germany should invest in renewable energy rather than seek alternative sources of oil and gas from places such as the Gulf or the United States.

“We want the energy transition to happen as quickly as possible,” said Duvigneau.

Several hundred young people gathered in Paris, marching from the domed Pantheon on the Left Bank to the Bastille plaza.

They carried signs reading “Wake Up” with a drawing of a burning Earth, calling on French presidential candidates to do more to fight climate change, or accusing French oil company TotalEnergies of cozying up to Putin for its refusal to pull out of Russia.

In Washington, D.C., demonstrators gathered in Lafayette Square, across from the White House, before marching toward the U.S. Capitol.

A few hundred young people showed up, many carrying signs and placards, including one that read, “Fossil fuels fund war. Green energy now.”

Sophia Geiger, 19, an activist with Fridays for Future, said she wants President Joe Biden to declare a national climate emergency — a repeated demand by environmental groups since Biden took office.

Geiger, who is taking a year off from her education to focus on climate action, said, “Even though he acknowledges this is a crisis, he does not act like it.”

___

Associated Press writer Suman Naishadham contributed from Washington, D.C.

___

Follow AP’s coverage of climate issues at https://apnews.com/hub/climate and of the Russia-Ukraine war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

GERMANY

Fridays for Future protests call for peace and climate justice

Coordinated global demonstrations drew thousands of mostly young people calling for climate leadership under the motto "People not Profit." In Germany, the war in Ukraine and bans on Russian fossil fuels were in focus.


In Germany, the war in Ukraine and Russian fossil fuel imports took center stage as more

 than 10,000 people gathered

Global protests organized by the activism network Fridays for Future attracted thousands of participants across Germany and the world Friday, all under the motto "People not Profit," in what was the group's 10th global climate strike.

The staggered protests began in Asia and Australia then moved to Europe and Africa before finishing later in the Americas.

In Stockholm, Sweden, climate activist Greta Thunberg joined protesters in the streets. Thunberg, whose lone demonstrations inspired the global movement, shared a video on Twitter of her and others hopping up and down with placards, yelling, "We are unstoppable! Another world is possible!"

Authorities in Germany say more than 10,000 mostly young people turned out to protest in Berlin, though organizers claim more than 22,000 attended. Thousands more gathered in Hamburg, Bremen, Munich and many other cities around the country.

Ukraine war shines light on Germany's fossil fuel dependency

In Germany, the war in Ukraine and the role of fossil fuels in it added a new dimension to the sense of urgency expressed by protesters. Participants demanded Germany's government immediately ban all import of Russian fossil fuels, for instance, accusing the administration of "funding the war" as a result of Germany's energy dependency.

The drastic changes recently initiated by Chancellor Olaf Scholz's coalition government were also the object of scorn. Protesters bemoaned the fact that the government now plans to scrap its climate goals to subsidize automobiles for the next two years, and build new liquid gas shipping terminals for imports rather than expanding renewables at home and lowering energy consumption.

Russian and Ukrainian activists were present in Berlin, too, some as invited speakers who told of the dangers of protesting in Russia, but also the necessity of doing so.

One Ukrainian who escaped to Germany from Kharkiv said, "The war in Ukraine could stop anytime. The EU and especially Germany just need to stop financing this."

"We are here today to show that peace and climate justice go together," said Berlin student Clara Duvigneau. She, like many at the rally, expressed extreme frustration at the fact that Germany pays tens of millions of euros to Moscow each day for fuels that harm the planet. "We want the energy transition to happen as quickly as possible," she said. 

Germany's 'systemic problem' with fossil fuel dependency

Many protesters criticized the Scholz administration's attempts to bolster supply by shifting dependency from one autocrat to another; Economic Affairs and Climate Action Minister Robert Habeck this week traveled to Qatar to negotiate liquid gas purchasing contracts with the emirate.

"If — like Robert Habeck — you have to travel to Qatar to get away from Putin's gas, you have a systemic problem," climate activist Luisa Neubauer told the daily taz newspaper in Berlin Friday. "In either case we finance opponents of democracy and increase the risk of climate collapse."

Another climate movement calling itself the "Last Generation" says it plans more nationwide protests in Germany on Saturday. The group says members will unfurl large banners with climate crisis facts on buildings across the country. The group says it will target banks, businesses and government agencies "financing the global expansion of deadly fossil fuel use."

No comments:

Post a Comment