Hundreds of thousands hit streets across continents to demand action on climate
Hundreds of thousands of people around the world are taking place in the latest wave of climate strikes to demand urgent action on the escalating ecological emergency.
Last week, millions walked out of schools and workplaces, uniting across timezones, cultures and generations in the biggest climate protests in history before a special UN conference in New York.
Continue reading...PM trumpets his country’s achievements in address to UN general assembly
Scott Morrison signalled that Australia is unlikely to update its emissions reduction commitments under the Paris agreement before a speech to the UN in which he declared that the media was misrepresenting the country’s climate change record.
During a press conference before his UN speech at a recycling facility in Brooklyn, the prime minister said he wouldn’t characterise “misrepresentations” about Australia’s climate stance as fake news.
Continue reading...Chinese women’s rights advocate Guo Jianmei also among quartet of ‘practical visionaries’ recognised in Right Livelihood awards
Days after her powerful speech to the UN climate action summit reverberated around the world, Greta Thunberg has been named among four winners of an international award dubbed the “alternative Nobels”.
The Swedish activist, whose emotional address accusing world leaders of betraying her generation went viral this week, was recognised by the judges of Sweden’s annual Rights Livelihood awards for “inspiring and amplifying political demands for urgent climate action reflecting scientific facts”.
Continue reading...Greta Thunberg has excoriated world leaders for their “betrayal” of young people through their inertia over the climate crisis at a United Nations summit that failed to deliver ambitious new commitments to address dangerous global heating.
Related: If world leaders choose to fail us, my generation will never forgive them | Greta Thunberg
Continue reading...The world may have hit a hopeful “turning point” in the struggle to tackle the climate crisis despite escalating greenhouse gas emissions and the recalcitrance of major emitters Brazil and the US, according to the United Nations secretary general.
Related: Trump to snub climate summit for religious freedom meeting at UN
Continue reading...Young and old alike took to the streets in an estimated 185 countries to demand action
Millions of people demonstrated across the world yesterday demanding urgent action to tackle global heating, as they united across timezones and cultures to take part in the biggest climate protest in history.
In an explosion of the youth movement started by the Swedish school striker Greta Thunberg just over 12 months ago, people protested from the Pacific islands, through Australia, across-south east Asia and Africa into Europe and onwards to the Americas.
Continue reading...Millions of people from Sydney to Manila, Dhaka to London and New York will march for urgent action on climate breakdown
Glorious scenes in Edinburgh as thousands of children, parents, students and musicians gather at the Meadows for the Climate Strike.
“This is our Earth and our Future. We need to take care of it ,” said 11-year-old Leila Koita, pictures here with friends Eilidh Tedesco, Norah Turner, Tilly Torrie, Megan Berger and NaN Zhang.
Norah’s mum, Jo Spencely says she hasn’t been on a demo for decades but she is here to show support. “I’m massively concerned about their future. I almost can’t bear to read about the climate. It’s so scary.”
The march sets off at 11:30am and will pass through Edinburgh city centre and end with a rally in front of the Scottish Parliament. As in London, police have imposed restrictions, in this case by refusing permission for the marchers to walk down Princes Street.
As elsewhere, this is just the start of a week of climate action. On Saturday, activists will stage a “die in”, Monday will be a “day of disruption”, musicians will join a “Love the Planet Festival” on Wednesday, and there’ll be another rally outside parliament the following day.
Even Emmeline Pankhurst has joined in the protests in Manchester. A statue of the suffragette hero has donned a bright orange lifejacket and a placard that asks: “Ready for rising sea levels to reach this height?”
The stunt was the idea of Katie Bradshaw and Ryan Griffiths, both 31, who described themselves as first-protestors who felt the need to act today.
“Emmeline still carries that Mancunian spirit of standing up for what she believes in and great causes,” said Griffiths. “Climate change is so important and we think it’s something herself would be an issue she would be at the forefront of if she were around today.”
Bradshaw added: “We’ve got to do our bit and even if it’s just putting some signs up and making people realise we need to look after our planet. If she was around today she’d be supporting it.”
Emmeline Pankhurst showing the world the way in Manchester pic.twitter.com/Z1TFjYCAuN
Continue reading...Time and location for the 20 September school strike for climate change in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Canberra, Adelaide, Hobart and more
Thousands of Australian school students are again preparing to walk out of classrooms across the country to demand action on the climate crisis.
The global mass day of action will take place on Friday 20 September, three days before the United Nations climate summit in New York.
Continue reading...Film by Swedish activist and Guardian journalist George Monbiot says nature must be used to repair broken climate
The protection and restoration of living ecosystems such as forests, mangroves and seagrass meadows can repair the planet’s broken climate but are being overlooked, Greta Thunberg and George Monbiot have warned in a new short film.
Natural climate solutions could remove huge amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as plants grow. But these methods receive only 2% of the funding spent on cutting emissions, say the climate activists.
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That’s it from the Liveblog for today.
Writer (and occasional Guardian columnist) Roxane Gay has endorsed Massachusetts senator, democratic presidential candidate and selfie enthusiast Elizabeth Warren for president, joining the progressive group Working Families Party -- which endorsed Warren’s challenger Bernie Sanders in 2016.
Shoutout to our #WCW, @rgay. We’re grateful that you’re in this fight with #TeamWarren. ✨ pic.twitter.com/5YEkyrCn8X
Continue reading...Teen climate activists attend a hearing to address the climate crisis and its traumatic effect on the younger generation
The climate campaigner Greta Thunberg has bluntly told members of Congress to heed scientists’ warnings over global heating on a day when the existential anguish of young activists was given a voice at the heart of Washington DC power.
Thunberg, the Swedish teenager who has ignited a global youth climate movement, said at a congressional hearing that she had no prepared remarks other than to submit the landmark IPCC report, published last year, that warned of the rapidly approaching catastrophe of global heating.
Continue reading...The Swedish environmentalist was one of several who spoke at a Senate climate crisis task force
At a meeting of the Senate climate crisis task force on Tuesday, lawmakers praised a group of young activists for their leadership, their gumption and their display of wisdom far beyond their years. They then asked the teens for advice on how Congress might combat one of the most urgent and politically contentious threats confronting world leaders: climate change.
Related: UN hosts drive to suck back carbon and reverse climate change
Continue reading...Swedish teen climate activist and other youth advocates demand action from the US to address the climate crisis
A Taliban negotiating team has reportedly arrived in Russia just days after Trump said potential peace talks with the group were “dead.”
The AP reports:
Russian state news agency Tass cited the Taliban’s Qatar-based spokesman Suhail Shaheen as saying the delegation had held consultations with Zamir Kabulov, President Vladimir Putin’s envoy for Afghanistan.
The visit also was confirmed to The Associated Press by a Taliban official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters.
This may well be the most terrifying thing you read on this Friday the 13th. Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter and senior adviser, told a group of donors last month that she got her moral compass from her father.
At a mid-August fundraiser in Jackson Hole, Wyo., Ivanka Trump was asked to name the personality traits she inherited most from her parents.
Without much of a pause, Trump told the crowd of roughly 120 high-end donors that her mother gave her an example of how to be a powerful, successful woman.
Continue reading...Greta Thunberg arrived in New York on Wednesday, stepping on to dry land after crossing the Atlantic in a zero-carbon yacht with a passionate message to tackle global heating.
Crowds had gathered to welcome her for hours beforehand, ready to welcome Thunberg’s arrival on the unconventional solar-powered craft.
Continue reading...Climate activist is four days into a two-week journey on solar-powered yacht
Four days into its two-week Atlantic crossing, the solar-powered yacht carrying climate activist Greta Thunberg is becalmed in the ocean after a choppy start to the trip, still 2,500 nautical miles from New York.
In an update posted to Twitter around midday on Saturday, the 16-year-old said she was eating and sleeping well and had no sea sickness so far.
Continue reading...MPs, celebrities and academics criticise ‘disgraceful’ comment by Brexit backer
Arron Banks has been criticised after he appeared to wish harm upon Greta Thunberg as the 16-year-old activist set sail across the Atlantic in a solar-powered yacht on a zero-carbon two-week voyage.
The controversial Brexit backer warned the teenager that “freak yachting accidents do happen in August” as he responded to a tweet by Green party MP Caroline Lucas who said Thunberg was carrying “the vital message to the UN that time is running out to address the climate emergency”.
Continue reading...Greta Thunberg started her long journey to climate summits in the Americas by joining a treetop protest in Germany’s Hambach forest, where environmentalists have been fighting for years to stop the ancient woodland being torn up for open-cast coal mining.
The battle to save the last remaining oak and hornbeam trees reflects the young activist’s entwined fights to protect the natural world from human exploitation and to halt carbon emissions.
Continue reading...Campaigner calls out ‘hate and conspiracy campaigns’ after Australian’s attack
The teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg has hit back at the Australian News Corp columnist Andrew Bolt for writing a deeply offensive column that mocked her autism diagnosis.
The Swedish schoolgirl posted a tweet overnight calling out the “hate and conspiracy campaigns” run by climate deniers like Bolt, adopting his insult that she was “deeply disturbed” and turning it back on him.
Continue reading...Paul Polman also supports Bank of England-backed group promoting disability rights
The former boss of Unilever is seeking a team of “heroic chief executives” to drive a shift to a low-carbon, more inclusive way of doing business.
Paul Polman, who stepped down from the Anglo-Dutch owner of Marmite and Dove in November last year after a decade at the helm, warns that the rise of populism and Brexit are symptoms of capitalism’s failure to adapt. Bosses, he insists, must commit to fighting inequality and tackling the climate emergency.
Continue reading...Activists say comments by Opec head prove world opinion is turning against fossil fuels
Greta Thunberg and other climate activists have said it is a badge of honour that the head of the world’s most powerful oil cartel believes their campaign may be the “greatest threat” to the fossil fuel industry.
The criticism of striking students by the trillion-dollar Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) highlights the growing reputational concerns of oil companies as public protests intensify along with extreme weather.
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