People carried out coordinated strikes in almost 150 countries around the world so as to press world leaders to take urgent action to check climate change. Hoards of peaceful demonstartors hit the streets with eye catchy placards so as to highlight the danger posed by climate change.
Starting off from the Pacific Islands the protesters spread to Japan, Australia, ASEAN nations, Europe, Americas, several African countries
Brazilian cities of Rio de Janerio, and Brasilia saw hundreads of pprotestors whereas more than two thousand people came out on the streets in Sao Paulo. Thousands of protested in Hamburg (Germany) and Melbourne (Australia) while number of protesters was close to 100,000 as per reports in London.
Climate protests also took place at New York where in a few days from now Swedish climate change icon Greta Thunberg would address a huge rally. New York is also where world leaders would be converging for a climate summit in the coming week. Climate change has caused extreme weather events this year for eg heavy rains this summer season caused floods in several states of India, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Sudan. In France more than 1100 people lost their lives due to heat stroke as tempratures soared unusually high.
In a related development about 2000 UN employees have sign a petition to UN General Secretary Antonio Gutierrez urging the world body to reduce its carbon emissions, the petition also mentioned that UN offices combined have a carbon footprint which is more than some of the member countries.
Activists are putting pressure on world leaders as they gather in New York for UN General Assembly meeting. Many world leaders have been indifferent to climate change; while US President Donald Trump in the past has described climate change as a ‘hoax’, Russian President Vladimir Putin is keen on drilling in the Arctic for oil.
President Jair Bolsarano of Brazil has been keen to clear forests in the Amazon for ‘development’. Amazon is the world’s largest tropical rainforest sucking up significant amounts of the worlds greenhouse gases.
