LIVE: Vancouver demonstrators join millions around the world to demand climate action
Credit to Author: Tiffany Crawford| Date: Fri, 27 Sep 2019 14:15:36 +0000
Millions of people are on strike in cities around the world Friday, including Vancouver, to demand governments take more action to combat the climate crisis.
Teen climate crusader Greta Thunberg, the inspiration behind the Fridays for Future movement, is in Montreal for the culmination of a week-long Global Climate Strike.
Early Friday, millions of demonstrators had already marched in countries such as Australia, India, and Italy. Photos on social media show staggering turnouts in Stockholm, Barcelona, Seoul, Mumbai and Torino, and many more cities and towns around the globe.
An estimated 60,000 people at the #ClimateStrike in Stockholm today. Feels emotional #FridaysForFuture pic.twitter.com/D1jgyXRGh1
In Metro Vancouver, at least eight events are being planned for Friday, with the largest expected to start at noon at Vancouver City Hall. One event was scheduled to begin at 6:30 a.m. on both sides of the Pitt River Bridge.
Participants will march from 12th Avenue and Cambie Street across the Cambie Street bridge and into downtown, where the march will end at the intersection of West Georgia and Hamilton streets.
Early Friday morning #ClimateStrikeCanada and #Montreal were trending on Twitter, and strikes were starting in cities around the country, such as St. John’s and Halifax.
Halifax, Canada #ClimateStrike #FridaysForFuture https://t.co/v1DKTSPsuu
The #climatestrike has hit Canada! St. John’s, Newfoundland taking time the streets to push for #ClimateAction
There is no time to waste, there is no planet B. #climatestrike #climateaction #climatestrikeCanada #FridaysForFurture @GretaThunbergpic.twitter.com/KBm3T8sp1H
On Sept. 20, the first day of the climate strike, hundreds of Vancouver youth joined millions around the world to protest inaction by governments to deal with greenhouse gas emissions, and participated in a die-in to draw attention to the threat they face if those emissions are not drastically cut.
The week-long global action was planned to coincide with the United Nations emergency climate summit held on Sept. 23. At the summit, Thunberg gave a chilling address telling the leaders that they were stealing their childhood and their future.
“This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you,” she said.
“You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you.”
She pleaded with leaders to listen to the scientists and do more than cut emissions by half in 10 years, which only provides a 50 per cent chance of staying below 1.5 C.
“A 50 per cent risk is simply not acceptable to us — we who have to live with the consequences.”
In 2018, the UN Intergovernmental Panel report on climate change warned that unless the global average temperature increase is held to 1.5 degrees Celsius, there will be catastrophic change to the planet, including increased drought, famine, wildfires and massive species extinction.
On Wednesday, another IPCC report on oceans and ice warned the oceans are warming faster than predicted and could rise up to 1.1 metres or more by 2100. It warned that the rising temperatures will mean oceans will have less oxygen and more acidification, which will mean the extinction of many species of fish.
More to come…
Incredible pictures from all over Italy! This is Torino #ClimateStrike #FridaysForFuture https://t.co/9lx1sjy4Rx
60 000 klimatdemonstranter i Stockholm! Wow!#ClimateStrike #FridaysForFuture #klimatstrejk pic.twitter.com/Iu45oPOpT3