Climate Change

Mayors of 9 major cities support #FridaysForFuture

Teenager's climate protest leads to thousands of schools strikes in 106 countries

 
By DTE Staff
Published: Thursday 14 March 2019
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Mayors of nine major cities have supported a demand for urgent climate action, raised by a group of youth. They also invited leaders of student climate protestors under the banner of FridayForFutures to collaborate towards ramping up climate action.

The mayors of Paris, Milan, Sydney, Austin, Philadelphia, Portland, Oslo, Barcelona & Montreal have indicated in a statement that they want to hear ideas from the youth about how to tackle climate change. Climate Action is one of the sustainable development goals mandated by the United Nations.

The cities in question are members of C40 cities, which are committed to capping global warming at 1.5 degree Celsius, as proposed at the Paris Agreement. Towards that goal the mayors have focussed on sustainable transport networks, green buildings, reduced waste and lower greenhouse gas emissions.

“They (the young citizens) are absolutely correct that our actions today will determine their futures,” Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, who chairs C40 Cities, said in a C40 release on March 14, 2019.

The young protestors plan to organise #FridaysForFuture events at 1,693 cities and towns in 106 countries across all continents on March 15. The chain of demonstrations started in August 2018 after 15-year-old Greta Thunberg sat outside the Swedish parliament every school day for three days.

She was protesting against the lack of action to prevent climate change. From September 8, 2018 she made her ‘climate strike’ a weekly fixture.

Thunberg’s action was noticed on social media, prompting other young people to demonstrate in their respective cities. Gradually chapters of FridaysForFutures came up in major cities of the world and drew traction among climate activists.

The support from the nine mayors, all form countries with developed economies, comes ahead of the March 15 plans to strike schools.

C40 claims to connect 94 cities across the world, representing more than 700 million citizens and a quarter of the global economy.

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