Six years after teenager Greta Thunberg left school to march alone against global warming outside the Swedish parliament, young people around the world have demonstrated, saying their voices are being heard but not sufficiently heeded.
Greenhouse gas emissions and temperatures are rising, and oil and gas drilling continues, even as the protests that kicked off the weeklong climate demonstrations in New York have become annual events. This year, they come just days before the United Nations holds two special summits, one devoted to sea-level rise, the other to the future.
The young people who have organized these marches with Fridays for Future said they feel frustration at inaction, but also hope. People have demonstrated in Berlin, Rio de Janeiro, New Delhi and elsewhere, but the focus is often on New York because of Climate Week NYC. Diplomats, business leaders and activists focus their discussions on the financial side of combating climate change, which is not lost on the protesters.
“We hope that the government and the financial sector will make polluters pay for the damage they have inflicted on our environment,” said Hilda Flavia Nakabuye, founder of Uganda Fridays for Future, who was among a few hundred people who marched in New York on Friday, a far cry from the tens of thousands who protested at a multi-group mega-rally in 2023.
The New York protest is aimed at “the pillars of fossil fuels”: the companies that pollute, the banks that fund them and the leaders who are failing on climate, said Helen Mancini, an organizer and a senior at Stuyvesant High School in the city.
“A lot of older people want to make sure the economy stays intact, and that’s their number one concern,” said Julia Demairo, a sophomore at Pace University. “I think worrying about the future and the environment is worrying about the economy.”
On a day when the temperature was at least 8 degrees warmer than average, protest signs included “This is not what we mean by ‘Hot Girl Summer’” while others focused on the theme of fighting the coal, oil and gas industries: “Young people didn’t vote for fossil fuels,” “Don’t be a fossil fuel jerk” and “Climate crisis = Extermination by capitalism.”
Nakabuye said she was in New York to represent Uganda “which is bearing the brunt of the climate crisis.”
“We feel like we are making an impact on the community. However, we are not being listened to enough. There is still a lot to do, especially now that climate disasters are intensifying,” Nakabuye said. “We need to raise our voices even more to demand change and to demand an end to fuels.”
In the six years since Thunberg founded what became Fridays for Future, global carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels have increased by about 2.15%, according to the Global Carbon Project, a group of scientists who track carbon pollution.
Emissions growth has slowed compared with previous decades and experts predict a peak soon, but that is far from the 43% reduction that a UN report says is needed to keep temperature rise to an agreed limit.
Since 2019, carbon dioxide emissions from coal have increased by nearly 900 million tonnes, while natural gas emissions have increased slightly and oil pollution has decreased slightly, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). The growth has been driven by China, India and developing countries.
But emissions from advanced or industrialised economies are falling and will hit their lowest level in more than 50 years in 2023, according to the IEA. Coal emissions from rich countries have fallen to levels seen around 1900, and the UK is set to close its last coal-fired power station next month.
Over the past five years, clean energy sources have grown twice as fast as fossil fuels, with solar and wind power each growing faster than fossil fuel-generated electricity, according to the IEA. Developing countries, home to more than 80% of the world’s population, say they need financial help to curb their growing use of fossil fuels.
Since 2018, the planet has warmed by more than 0.29 degrees Celsius, with last year setting a record for the hottest year on record and this year on track to break that record, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the European climate agency Copernicus.
“We are making progress, albeit slowly,” said Ashen Harper, a 17-year-old Connecticut protester turned organizer. “Our job right now is to accelerate that progress.”
In Berlin, hundreds of people took to the streets, but in smaller numbers than in previous years. Activists held signs reading “Save the climate” and “Coal is over!” as they attended a concert outside the German Chancellery. In London, protesters held up letters reading “Pay Up,” calling on the country to pay more to adapt to climate change and abandon fossil fuels.
