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Thousands of young Australians walking out of their classrooms to demand action on climate change have been joined by thousands more adults in cities and towns around the nation.
Key points:
- The protests are part of a global strike movement led by a 16-year-old Swedish activist
- More than 2,500 Australian businesses said they were participating in the strike
- Education Minister Dan Tehan said "politics should be kept out of the classroom"
The global day of action, led by Swedish teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg, is happening three days before the United Nations Climate Change Summit in New York.
Demonstrations were officially registered in all eight capital cities and 104 other towns across Australia.
Australian school protesters want the Federal Government to commit to:
- No new coal, oil or gas projects
- 100 per cent renewable energy generation and exports by 2030
- Funding for "a just transition and job creation for all fossil-fuel industry workers and communities"
Australia is one of the first countries to participate in protests planned for 150 countries on September 20.
The movement has rallied behind 16-year-old Thunberg, who first started protesting alone outside Sweden's Parliament last year.
"Soon the sun will rise on Friday the 20th of September 2019. Good luck Australia, The Philippines, Japan and all the Pacific Islands. You go first!" Thunberg posted on Instragram on Thursday.
The movement has been controversial in Australia, with some teachers being accused of bias and bringing politics into the classroom, and the Government linking the demonstrations to flagging test results.
More than 2,500 Australian businesses have pledged to participate in the action, either closing their doors or allowing their employees to walk off the job.
The businesses signed on to Not Business As Usual, an alliance which said it was a "group of Australian and global businesses pledging to support worker participation in the climate strike".
Tens of thousands turned out at The Domain in Sydney for the rally there.
There were reports of packed buses with students with signs coming into the city, with huge numbers marching through the CBD.
In Hobart, thousands of protesters gathered at the lawns outside Parliament House.
Two school students delivered impassioned poems about the world they said they hoped to live in.
"Activism is education and this is our classroom," teen activist Toby Thorpe told a cheering crowd.
"But we're not the students here, we are the teachers, and we will not stop until we're heard."
Johanna Ellis, 21, said her workplace had closed for the day, "but we're still getting paid to rally".
In Canberra, thousands marched through the city and gathered in Glebe Park, demanding action from Australia's leaders.
"It's important that our Government hears out our youth and what we have to say," one protester said.
'We're the ones that are going to be impacted by this'
Cairns organiser Piper Lily O'Connell said in Queensland a focus was on wanting to stop the Adani Carmichael coal mine.
"We're in the thick of a climate crisis right now, in Australia, but especially in Cairns we feel that pretty strongly. The Great Barrier Reef is on our doorstep and dying.
"These are pretty scary things and as a teenager … we're the ones that are going to be impacted by this."
In Alice Springs more than 500 people attended the climate strike in the Todd Mall, with school students making up a large portion of the crowd.
The protesters focused on how climate change is affecting Indigenous people in remote communities.
Hundreds of people rallied in Townsville during the morning, many missing work and school in a peaceful demonstration.
"It's our future and we care so much about our future and that is why we are here," 13-year-old Ella Rizos said.
Environment Minister says Australia on track to meet targets
The protests were spurred on by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report released last year that detailed a catastrophic future of extreme weather events if greenhouse gas emissions were not reined in.
The United Nations released a report in February showing that the 20 warmest years on record had all been in the past 22 years.
Australia is a signatory to the 2015 Paris climate agreement, the global deal to combat climate change, and pledged to reduce the country's emissions by 26 to 28 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030.
Figures released in August showed Australia's carbon emissions were continuing to climb.
Date released in June showed Australia's pollution was at an all-time high across most sectors.
Environment Minister Sussan Ley said if the purpose of the protest was to draw Government attention to climate change "I can assure everyone that our attention is already there".
"We are taking real and coordinated global action on climate change, while ensuring our economy remains strong," she said in a statement.
In a statement, Education Minister Dan Tehan drew a link between the global strike movement and flagging test results around the country.
"The true test of the protesters' commitment would be how many turned up for a protest held on a Saturday afternoon," he said.
Topics: environment, environmental-policy, environmental-impact, education, environment-education, business-economics-and-finance, schools, climate-change, government-and-politics, australia, vic, nsw, nt, qld, sa, tas, wa
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