Fresh wave of climate strikes takes place around the world

Hundreds of thousands of people around the world are taking place in the latest wave of climate strikes to demand urgent action on the escalating ecological emergency.

Last week, millions walked out of schools and workplaces, uniting across timezones, cultures and generations in the biggest climate protests in history before a special UN conference in New York.

Organisers said they were expecting another huge turnout on Friday, with demonstrations planned from Canada to the Netherlands, Sweden to Morocco, Italy to India.

In New Zealand, record numbers of protesters were reported to have taken to the streets on Friday. Greta Thunberg, the teenager who inspired the school strike movement with her solo protest outside the Swedish parliament last year, said 3.5% of the country were taking part.

An open-letter signed by 11,000 New Zealanders was delivered to parliament on Friday morning calling on the government to declare a climate emergency – following the lead of numerous councils around the country.

“Our representatives need to show us meaningful and immediate action that safeguards our futures on this planet,” Raven Maeder, the School Strike 4 Climate national coordinator, said. “Nothing else will matter if we cannot look after the Earth for current and future generations. This is our home.”

As part of the Earth Strike events, there are also expected to be big demonstrations in South America from Mexico City’s vast Zócalo square to the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires.

Activists say Plaza Italia in Santiago, Chile, will be flooded with demonstrators from 6pm, while protests will be staged in cities in Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador and Paraguay around the rim of the Amazon rainforest.

On Bogotá’s high Andean plain, the environmental movement has faced a severe crackdown. In July, protesters across the country pleaded for an end to the violence that has resulted in numerous activists being killed, with peace and development thinktank Indepaz putting the figure at 734 deaths in the first seven months of 2019.

“We want to keep fracking out of our country and demand an immediate change towards decarbonisation,” said the activist Susana Muhamad, who was planning to march past the offices of the country’s largest petroleum company, Ecopetrol, at midday.

More than 30 events have been planned in Argentina, where crowds will be marching across the capital from the Plaza de Mayo to the seat of the national congress.

Among them will be Stephanie Cabovianco, a 30-year-old activist from Buenos Aires. “There are no outright leaders coordinating our movement in Latin America – and that’s a good thing,” she explains. “This is a fight led by young people, and its structure should be as horizontal as possible.”

The strikes are a sign of the growing awareness and anger of the severity and scale of the climate crisis among people around the world.

Earlier this week, Thunberg excoriated world leaders at the UN for their “betrayal” of young people after the New York summit failed to deliver ambitious new commitments to address dangerous global heating.

The climate activist told governments: “You are still not mature enough to tell it like it is. You are failing us. But the young people are starting to understand your betrayal.”