Climate protests will hit hundreds of cities this weekend for the Global Fight to End Fossil Fuels.
Tens of thousands of climate activists around the world will take part in protests between 15-17 September.
They are calling for an end to the burning of planet-warming fossil fuels as the globe suffers dramatic weather extremes and record-breaking heat.
The ‘Global Fight to End Fossil Fuels’ strike will take place in dozens of countries and in hundreds of cities worldwide and continue through the weekend.
It is driven by several mostly youth-led, local and global climate groups and organisations, including Greta Thunberg‘s Fridays for Future movement.
The protests mark the lead up to the United Nations Secretary General’s Climate Ambition Summit on Monday.
Where are climate protests taking place this weekend?
Protests are organised around the world, from across Europe to the US, India, Africa, Australia and South America.
In one strike in Quezon City in the Philippines, activists lay in front of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources in protest, and held signs demanding fossil fuels – from coal to natural gas – be phased out.
Another major strike is planned to take place Sunday in New York, to coincide with the city’s Climate Week and the UN climate summit.
The Fossil Fuel Treaty map gives an overview of planned events. They are most heavily concentrated in Europe, with several protests registered in London, Paris, Rome, Madrid, Brussels, Berlin, Vienna, Stockholm and beyond on Friday and over the weekend.
Climate activists have organised similar worldwide strikes in recent years, where protesters from different nations join together on a single day.
Why are climate activists protesting?
“This historic mobilisation renews and reinforces the globally coordinated efforts focused on ending the era of fossil fuels,” a statement on the ‘Fight Fossil Fuels’ website dedicated to the protests reads.
“Across the globe, we are coming together to fight back against the fossil fuel industry and its enablers,” it adds.
ADVERTISEMENTA week before the planned protest, the United Nations warned that countries are way off track to curb warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times, as agreed in Paris in 2015. The world has warmed at least 1.1 degrees since then.
Over the past few months, Earth broke its daily average heat record several times according to one metric, July was the hottest month ever on record, and the Northern Hemisphere summer was declared the hottest on record.
Dozens of extreme weather events – from Hurricane Idalia in the southeastern United States to torrential flooding in Delhi in India – are believed to have been made worse by human-caused climate change.
