Young people hit the streets for climate protests around the world
What is Fridays for Future and how did it begin?
From CNN’s Aditi Sangal in New York
Fridays for Future (FFF) is a youth-driven global climate strike movement that started in August 2018, when then 15-year-old Swede Greta Thunberg skipped school and staged sit-ins on Fridays outside the Swedish Parliament.
In the three weeks leading up to the Swedish election, she sat outside the Parliament every school day, demanding urgent action on the climate crisis.
Soon, others joined and the group decided to continue their strike until Swedish authorities implemented policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They wanted climate efforts to be in line with goals under the 2015 Paris Agreement to contain global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, but preferably 1.5 degrees, above preindustrial levels. Very few countries are in line with that goal right now.
The strikers created the hashtag #FridaysForFuture and encouraged other young people all over the world to join them. They sometimes coordinate their protests, like those today, expected in more than 1,400 locations around the world.
Young Germans protest as their country heads for a climate-focused election
From Sheena McKenzie in Reinhardswald, Germany
Gazing out from the rocky ledge of Sleeping Beauty’s castle in central Germany, the countryside below stretches out in a patchwork of light and dark green forests before stopping dead.
At the heart of this lush landscape sits a swath of dry, bare earth. The ground is empty, save for a few ghostly white trunks pointing skywards.
Bark beetle infestations worsened by drought conditions and warmer weather brought by climate change has weakened the trees at the Reinhardswald nature park, the scene of childhood favorite fairy takes, like Sleeping Beauty and Little Red Riding Hoo
“Once the bark has peeled off, the trees look a bit like bones,” said Peter Meyer, head of forest nature conservation at the North-West German Forest Research Institute in Göttingen and Hann Münden.
“Then the beetle can just drill into the tree, lay eggs underneath the bark, and the larvae feed on the tree, interrupting the water supply, and that makes the tree die,” Meyer explains.
“Drought is the trigger for bark beetle infestations.”
Germany has suffered historic drought in recent years and 2018 was the warmest since records began 140 years ago. In other parts of the country this summer, rain has fallen hard and fast, triggering deadly floods.
All of these events have put the climate crisis squarely on the campaign trail ahead of Germany’s federal election on Sunday. It’s the first in 16 years that won’t feature Chancellor Angela Merkel, and the candidates vying to replace her are all pitching their climate credentials.
Read the full story here:
Turkish youths to join strikes in Istanbul
From CNN’s Isil Sariyuce in Istanbul
Turkish students will join Fridays for Future’s global strike in Istanbul at 2 p.m. local time.
It is the first strike after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced at the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Tuesday that his country would bring the Paris Agreement to parliament to be ratified in one month.
Turkey is one among just a handful of more than 190 nations that signed up to the Paris Agreement in 2015 but has not yet ratified it with legislation. It’s the only G20 nation yet to do so.
Climate protesters at UK’s Port of Dover arrested
Police have arrested 17 people in connection with protests at the UK’s busiest ferry port of Dover.
Police in the county of Kent said they were dealing with protest activity that began at around 8:20 a.m. local time and had been going for around three hours.
The group has been calling on the UK government to insulate homes across the country to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Climate activists block UK’s busiest ferry port in Dover
From CNN’s Isabelle Jani-Friend in Sussex
Climate protesters from a group called Insulate Britain have blocked the country’s busiest ferry port at Dover after being banned from causing disruption on the M25, a ring road that encircles Greater London.
More than 40 people are blocking the port in an attempt to pressure the UK government into insulating homes across the country to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The UK has a widespread problem with energy inefficiency in its homes, many of which date back hundreds of years and are hard to heat in winter and cool in summer.
Images show protestors blocking the A20 into the port.
“Disruption is the only way to keep insulation on the agenda,” Insulation Britain said on Twitter.
“It is the only way to draw attention to ill health & early death as a result of fuel poverty.”
The group, which is an offshoot of Extinction Rebellion, has caused havoc on the M25 motorway five times over the last two weeks. The group’s members are now being threatened with imprisonment if they return to the M25 following a high court injunction banning climate protests there.
The Port of Dover’s management said protesters were blocking both the entrance and exit to the port, though it remains open.
Fridays for Future Global Climate Strike kicks off with call for ‘colonizers’ of the rich world to pay up
Protesters have begun to gather at the Reichstag, which houses the lower chamber of Germany’s parliament, in central Berlin.
Germany has the highest number of youth protests planned for Friday, with more than 400 scheduled to take place in the country, and the movement’s founder, Greta Thunberg, is expected to speak in Berlin.
Youth protesters from over 1,400 locations are calling on the Global North to pay their “climate debt.”
“The colonizers of the north have a debt to pay for their disproportionate amount of historic emissions and that starts with the increase of climate finance to implement anti-racist climate reparations,” protest organizers said.
“Other socio-economic crises such as racism, sexism, ableism, class inequality, and more amplify the climate crisis and vice versa.”
The Global Climate Strike is taking place across all inhabited continents under the banner #UprootTheSystem.
The strike comes as world leaders make key decisions on climate at the UN General Assembly and just weeks before the Cop26 climate summit in the Scottish city of Glasgow.
They protest organizers are calling for “a future where people and planet are prioritized.”
“They are also asking leaders of the Global North to drastically cut their emissions, ensure equitable distribution of the Covid vaccine and to recognize how the climate crisis impacts human safety, particularly that of indigenous communities.”
Source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/cnn_topstories/~3/WbPTpuDxJT8/index.html
