Countdown to global youth climate strikes on Friday

Mitzi Jonelle Tan of the Philippines

One of the Climate strikers Mitzi Jonelle Tan of the Philippines

Some youth climate activists planning climate strikes on Friday. Left Greta Thunberg; T-B, Nicole Becker, Kevin Mtai and Mitzi Jonelle Tan

Thousands of climate strikes will take place across the globe on Friday to demand urgent action to tackle the climate crisis.

Youth strikers from MAPA countries (Most Affected People and Areas), Mitzi Jonelle Tan (Philippines), Eyal Weintraub (Argentina), Disha A Ravi (India), Kevin Mtai (Kenya), Laura Veronica Muñoz (Colombia), joined Greta Thunberg from Sweden to announce a new wave of global climate strikes.

Said Thunberg: “Next Friday, 25th September, Fridays For Future and the youth climate movement will strike again around the world, in a safe way and following Covid-19 guidelines, to demand those in power treat this like the urgent crisis it is.”

Added Verónica Munoz: “This September 25th we are going to mobilize to defend life, nature and demand the ratification of the Escazú Agreement,”

One of the Climate strikers Mitzi Jonelle Tan of the Philippines

Actions will be in the streets where COVID-19 regulations allow, as well as online. Street protests will follow local COVID-19 and social distancing guidelines.

As extreme weather events, fires and floods driven by the climate crises accelerate across the world, the strikes are a reminder to those in power that the climate crisis has not gone away.

Last year, millions of people took to the streets to demand climate action.

Politicians and the media congratulated the youth and portrayed them as beacons of hope.

However, with those same leaders’ inaction, there was never a cause for celebration.

For the youth in the areas most affected by the climate crisis, 2019 was not a year for festivities: it was a struggle.

Millions of people had to abandon their homes and it was one of the hottest years on record.

With the global pandemic proving that our system cannot handle a serious crisis, now is the perfect opportunity to have a just recovery and build a better normal.

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Said Kevin Mtai of Kenya: “The climate crisis is already having a huge impact on communities like mine in Africa.

“Unprecedented heavy rains and record floods across West, Central, and East Africa have affected millions of people in recent weeks, with more than 200 people dead and hundreds of thousands left homeless.

” In the US there are devastating wildfires, climate breakdown is not something that is going to happen in the future, it is here and now,” Mtai added.

Mitzi Jonelle Tan of the Philippines also commented:

“The Global South, or the Most Affected People and Areas (MAPA), are those that experience the worst impacts of the climate crisis.

“Despite being the ones to bear the brunt of the extreme calamities, we are continuously ignored, and underrepresented in places of power.

“There is a pressing need for our voices to be heard all over the world, especially in the global climate movement, and for the carbon majors historically responsible for this crisis to act immediately.

“Carbon majors, the US, EU, China, Shell, BP, Exxon, Chevron, we are calling you out. You have a responsibility to the world, especially to us most affected,” said Laura Verónica Muñoz

Thunberg summed up the reason for the climate strikes:

“Extreme weather driven by the climate crisis is accelerating around the world, and yet we still don’t treat it as a crisis. We are in a global emergency that affects all of us.

“However, not everyone is suffering its consequences equally and the media ignore the devastation in global south countries being disproportionately hit.

She added:

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