Students around the world follow Greta Thunberg’s call to rally over climate in first major protest since pandemic

But on Friday, with the worst of the pandemic seemingly in the rear view mirror, young people from Berlin to Bangladesh were out attending events to demand their politicians take urgent action.

The protests come just weeks ahead of of Cop26, a major international climate conference that will be held in Glasgow, Scotland.

The Fridays for Future movement is now a global phenomena — on Friday, students were protesting in over 1,500 locations, though mostly in small numbers and not achieving the numbers that came out in 2019.

The Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg, who started it all back in 2018, was in Berlin on Friday where she spoke outside the Reichstag parliament building.

“Yes, we must vote, you must vote, but remember that voting only will not be enough. We must keep going into the streets,” she said, presiding over what appeared to be the largest protest of them all.

While the German election loomed over Friday’s protests in Germany, which were scheduled at more than 400 locations in the country, many slogans and banners reflected the crisis in a broader sense, demanding a stop to coal energy production and a rapid transition to renewable energies.

“The politicians aren’t doing anything,” said Marcus Schmidt, 30, referring to the current German government. “I’m here to show that we have it in our hands now, to elect a government that perhaps finally changes something,” he said.

In Wellington, New Zealand, protesters gathered outside of Parliament chanting “hey hey, ho ho, fossil fuels have got to go.”

In Hyderabad, India, young people dressed from head to toe in black to represent the “black lungs of India” and held up signs that read “uproot the system, not the trees.”

“No more empty promises,” shouted demonstrators walking through the streets of Kisumu, the third largest city in Kenya.

Dylan Hamilton, a 17-year-old who was marching through the streets of Glasgow said that the young people were glad to be back taking action in-person and not about to stop anytime soon.

She said that since their last big march prior to the pandemic, the issue of climate change has shot up the political agenda. But she was unconvinced that action was matching the rhetoric. “The government’s messaging has gotten better, but emissions are still going up. We want them to go down, and will keep marching until they do.”

She said that young activists in Glasgow were also planning to make their voices heard next month during Cop26, when they will hit the streets in Scotland’s most populous city.

In September 2019, millions of young people took to the streets in what were regarded as the largest climate change protests in history.

Noack reported from Berlin.

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