The largest climate change protests in the U.S. got under way on Friday with students and young people expected to turn out in more than 1,000 locations across all 50 U.S. States to demand action to prevent climate change. Young Americans joined others across the world in a day of protests.
Greta Thunberg, the 16 year old from Sweden, who began weekly Friday protests outside Sweden’s Parliament in August 2018 and has become the face of these protests, is participating in a rally in Lower Manhattan.
Ms. Thunberg, who does not take aeroplanes, arrived in the U.S. via a zero emissions solar-powered yacht, having set sail from Plymouth on August 14. Earlier this week, she was in Washington where she testified before Congress, and met lawmakers, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“I don’t want you to listen to me, I want you to listen to the scientists,” Ms. Thunberg told a panel of the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this week, submitting a copy of the IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5o C [October 2018] as her testimony to Congress. “And I want you to unite behind the science. And then I want you to take real action,” Ms. Thunberg had said.
New York’s 1.1 million public school students have been allowed to skip classes to attend the protests if they have their parents’ permission, but school teachers are not permitted to attend during school hours, the New York Times reported.
Friday’s protests are scheduled for days before the UN Climate Change Summit on Monday which will see world leaders, including Prime Minster Narendra Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron deliver addresses. UN Secretary General Antonio Gutteres had told leaders not to bring speeches but to bring plans to Monday’s Summit.
Significantly, President Donald Trump, who has pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Accord and undone several climate change mitigating policies, will not speak on Monday. According to a CBS News poll, 56% of Americans want climate change action to be taken right now.
