Ahead of the next strike by schoolchildren, scheduled for 15th March, the Global Coordination Group of the Youth-led Climate Strike has published an open letter in the Guardian newspaper.
We, the young, are deeply concerned about our future. Humanity is currently causing the sixth mass extinction of species and the global climate system is at the brink of a catastrophic crisis. Its devastating impacts are already felt by millions of people around the globe. Yet we are far from reaching the goals of the Paris agreement.
Young people make up more than half of the global population. Our generation grew up with the climate crisis and we will have to deal with it for the rest of our lives. Despite that fact, most of us are not included in the local and global decision-making process. We are the voiceless future of humanity.
We will no longer accept this injustice. We demand justice for all past, current and future victims of the climate crisis, and so we are rising up. Thousands of us have taken to the streets in the past weeks all around the world. Now we will make our voices heard. On 15 March, we will protest on every continent.
We finally need to treat the climate crisis as a crisis. It is the biggest threat in human history and we will not accept the world’s decision-makers’ inaction that threatens our entire civilisation. We will not accept a life in fear and devastation. We have the right to live our dreams and hopes. Climate change is already happening. People did die, are dying and will die because of it, but we can and will stop this madness.
We, the young, have started to move. We are going to change the fate of humanity, whether you like it or not. United we will rise until we see climate justice. We demand the world’s decision-makers take responsibility and solve this crisis.
You have failed us in the past. If you continue failing us in the future, we, the young people, will make change happen by ourselves. The youth of this world has started to move and we will not rest again.
The global coordination group of the youth-led climate strike
"We are school striking because we have done our homework"
EESC event "Civil Society for rEUnaissance" 21/02/2019
Speech by Greta Thunberg
Tens of thousands of children are school striking for the climate on the streets of Brussels. Hundreds of thousands are doing the same all over the world. We are school striking because we have done our homework. And some of us are here today.
People always tell us that they are so hopeful. They are hopeful that the young people are going to save the world. But we are not. There simply is not enough time to wait for us to grow up and become the ones in charge. Because by the year 2020 we need to have bent the emissions curve steeply downwards.
That is next year.
We know that most politicians don’t want to talk to us. Good. We don’t want to talk to them either.
We want them to talk to the scientists instead. Listen to them. Because we are just repeating what they are saying and have been saying for decades. We want you to follow the Paris Agreement and the IPCC reports. We don’t have any other manifesto or demands. Just unite behind the science; that is our demand.
When many politicians talk about the school strike for the climate, they talk about almost anything except for the climate crisis. Many people are trying to make the school strike a question of whether we are promoting truancy or whether we should go back to school or not. They make up all sorts of conspiracies and call us puppets who cannot think for ourselves. They are desperately trying to remove the focus from the climate crisis and change the subject. They don’t want to talk about it because they know they cannot win this fight. Because they know they haven’t done their homework. But we have.
Once you have done your homework you realise that we need new politics. We need a new economics where everything is based on our rapidly declining extremely limited rapidly declining carbon budget. But that is not enough.
We need a whole new way of thinking.
The political system that you have created is all about competition. You cheat when you can because all that matters is to win - to get power. That must come to an end. We must stop competing with each other.
We need to cooperate and work together and to share the resources of the planet in a fair way. We need to start living within the planetary boundaries, focus on equity, and take a few steps back for the sake of all living species.
We need to protect the biosphere, the air, the oceans, the soil, the forests.
This may sound very naive but if you have done your homework then you know that we don’t have any other choice.
We need to focus every inch of our being on climate achange, because if we fail to do so, then all of our progress and achievements have been for nothing. And all that will remain of our political leaders’ legacy will be the greatest failure of human history. And they will be remembered as the greatest villains of all time because they have chosen not to listen and not to act.
But this does not have to be. There is still time.
According to the IPCC report, we are at about 11 years away from being in a position where we set off an irreversible chain reaction beyond human control. To avoid that, unprecedented changes in all aspects of society need to have to taken place within the coming decade, including a reduction of our CO2 emissions by at least if 50% by the year 2030.
And please note that those numbers do not include the aspect of equity which is absolutely necessary to make the Paris Agreement work on a global scale.
Nor do they include tipping points or feedback loops like the extremely powerful methane gas released from the thawing arctic permafrost.
They do however include negative emission techniques on a huge planetary scale that is yet to be invented and that many scientists fear will never be ready in time and will anyway be impossible to deliver at the scale assumed.
We have been told that the EU intends to improve its emissions reduction target. In the new target the EU is proposing to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 45% below the 1990 level by 2030. Some people say that is good or that is ambitious But this target is not enough to keep global warming below 1.5°C. It is not sufficient to protect the future for children growing up today.
If the EU is to make its fair contribution to staying within the carbon budget for the 2°C limit then it means a minimum of 80% reduction by 2030 ... and that includes aviation and shipping - so, around twice as ambitious as the current proposal.
The actions required are beyond manifestos or any party politics. Once again they sweep the mess under the carpet for our generation to clean up and solve.
Some people say that we are fighting for our future. But that is not true. We are not fighting for our future; we are fighting for everyone’s future.
And if you think we should be in school instead then we suggest that you take our place in the streets, striking from your work, or better yet, join us so that we can speed up the process.
And, I am sorry, but saying that everything will be all right while continuing to do nothing at all is just not helpful to us. In fact, it is the opposite of hope. And yet this is exactly what you keep doing. You can’t just sit around waiting for hope to come. Then you are acting like spoiled irresponsible children. You don’t seem to understand that hope is something you have to earn.
And if you still say we are wasting valuable lesson time, then let me remind you that our political leaders have wasted decades through denial and inaction.
And since our time is running out we have decided to take action. We have started to clean up your mess and we will not stop until we are done.
Thank you.
