Youth unite for a better environment
More than 200 youngsters in Thailand march into ministry to demand action against climate change.
BANGKOK: More than 200 young people in Thailand stormed into the environment ministry and dropped to the ground feigning death as they demanded government action on climate change along with thousands of strikers around the world.
The young strikers were chanting “Save our Earth” as they marched into the government compound yesterday, before lying down on the ground to play dead.
“This is what will happen if we don’t act on climate change now,” said one of the strike leaders, Nanticha Ocharoenchai, 21.
“Today we are demanding that the Thai government declare a climate emergency and stop using fossil fuel.”
One teenager also held a poster that read, “The planet is getting hotter than my imaginary boyfriend.”
“We’re young, but we’re not dumb. We know it’s happening. We need change. We demand better,” said activist Ralyn “Lilly” Satidtanasarn, 11.
The Bangkok strike was part of protests taking place in some 150 countries yesterday, inspired by 16-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who urged students and others from around the world to speak in one voice about the impending effects of climate change on the planet.
“We’re skipping school because teachers teach us how to work in the future, but if we don’t do this, there will be no future for us to work in,” said Peem Prasertsuntarasai, 11.
Peem joined the strike with two schoolmates, Ari and Jay, holding placards featuring drawings of melting icebergs and power plants emitting dark smoke.
“So what’s the point of studying in school if the world’s gonna be gone?”
A senior official at the Natural Resource and Environment Ministry came out to accept a letter from the students, saying he was supportive of the students’ action.
“This is how young people express their concerns, which we deem as a good sign and not at all a nuisance,” Adisorn Noochdumrong, deputy permanent secretary of the ministry, said.
“We encourage it.”
BERLIN: Hundreds of thousands of protesters in Australia, many of them children who skipped school, kicked off a day of demonstrations around the world against climate change in the run-up to a United Nations summit in New York.
Rallies to open the “Global Climate Strike” took place yesterday in 110 towns and cities across Australia, including Sydney and the national capital Canberra.
Demonstrators called for their country, the world’s largest exporter of coal and liquid natural gas, to take more drastic action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“Even though we ourselves aren’t sick, the planet we live on is, and we are protesting and fighting for it,” said Siobhan Sutton, a 15-year-old student at Perth Modern School.
Organisers estimated that more than 300,000 protesters took to Australian streets in what would be the country’s biggest demonstration since the Iraq War in 2003.
Smaller protests took place in Asia, from the Philippines to Hong Kong and India.
“We need to reclaim our constitutional right to clean air and water,” said Aman Sharma, a 16-year-old protester in New Delhi, India.
Rallies were also planned in Europe, Africa and the United States, where organisers said more than 800 events were expected yesterday.
In Germany, which has seen largescale climate rallies for over a year, police said 17,000 people gathered in Freiburg, one of 500 cities nationwide where protests were planned.
In the capital Berlin and financial hub Frankfurt, some protesters staged brief road blockades to highlight their demands for a drastic reduction in the country’s greenhouse gas emissions, to which transport is a major contributor.
Under pressure from sustained protests over the past months, the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel planned to announce measures to reduce Germany’s greenhouse gas emissions later yesterday.
Rallies were also held in Kenya’s capital Nairobi, Johannesburg and South African capital Pretoria.
Experts say Africa is the most vulnerable continent to climate change and the least equipped to deal with it.
The protests are partly inspired by the activism of Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg, who has staged weekly demonstrations under the heading “Fridays for Future” over the past year, calling on world leaders to step up their efforts against climate change.
She is expected to speak at the UN Climate Action Summit on Monday.
Australian universities have said they would not penalise students for attending yesterday’s rallies, while Australian schools varied on what action, if any, they would take against children who skipped classes to attend demonstrations.
Acting Prime Minister Michael McCormack said students should be in school.
“These sorts of rallies should be held on a weekend where it doesn’t actually disrupt business, schools or universities,” McCormack said.
Some companies were encouraging their employees to join the climate strike.
The Australian Council of Trade Unions, which represents labour unions, said it supported employees taking time off work to protest.
The council said it “must take a stand for our future when our government will not”.