Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Greta Thunberg leads protests as Covid rules restrict numbers compared with last year
School pupils, youth activists and communities around the world have turned out for a day of climate strikes, intended to underscore the urgency of the climate crisis even in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
Social distancing and other Covid-19 control measures dampened the protests, but thousands of activists posted on social media and took to the streets to protest against the lack of climate action from world leaders. Strikes were scheduled in at least 3,500 locations around the globe.
Global climate activist pleased with film’s portrayal of her as a ‘shy nerd’
A documentary following Greta Thunberg and her journey from Swedish schoolgirl to global climate activist accurately portrays her as a “shy nerd”, the teenager said as the film premiered at the Venice film festival.
Director Nathan Grossman recorded Thunberg’s everyday life for a year, chronicling her rise to fame from the beginning of her school strike outside the Swedish parliament in August 2018 to her trips around the world demanding that political leaders take action to fight the climate crisis.
Two years on from Greta Thunberg’s first solo school strike for the climate, she says the world has wasted the time by failing to take the necessary action on the crisis.
Thunberg’s strike inspired a global movement, and on Thursday she and other leading school strikers will meet Angela Merkel, the chancellor of Germany, which holds the rotating presidency of the European council. They will demand a halt to all fossil fuel investments and subsidies and the establishment of annual, binding carbon budgets based on the best science.
Exclusive: Activist says €750bn fund shows leaders not treating global heating as emergency
Greta Thunberg has accused EU politicians of failing to acknowledge the scale of the climate crisis and said its €750bn Covid-19 recovery plan does not do enough to tackle the issue.
The climate campaigner said the package of measures agreed by EU leaders proved that politicians were still not treating climate change as an emergency.
United Nations hosts climate summit in New York on Monday
New data shows 2014-19 warmest five-year period on record
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.
The image was not taken after a climate strike and was not even taken in Australia
A hoax photo that claims to show rubbish left behind by Australian climate strike protesters is circulating on Facebook, despite being revealed as fake months ago.
Though it lacks any verification, and was debunked in April, the image and false caption have been shared 19,000 times in 12 hours, and thousands of times from copycats.
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.”
Survey says teachers feel ill-equipped to educate pupils, as school strikes continue
A growing number of teachers want their pupils to learn more about the climate crisis and are calling for environmental training so they can prepare children for a rapidly changing world, according to a poll.
The findings from YouGov research commissioned by Oxfam come before the latest round of school climate strikes on Friday, in which it is expected that hundreds of thousands of young people will walk out of classrooms around the world.