Millions march in biggest ever Global Climate Strike

In the largest environmental demonstration ever seen, today saw millions of people across the world take part in a Global Climate Strike.
From Athens to Johannesburg, Melbourne to Delhi, huge protests have taken place calling for urgent action to combat the devastating impact of climate change.
This latest wave of demonstrations are being held to raise further awareness of the climate emergency ahead of an environmental summit at the United Nations in New York on Monday.
Inspired by the 16-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who has sailed to New York for the summit, schoolchildren and young people have been leading the way in the global climate strikes, and are now being joined by those of all ages.
As reported previously in WhatsOn, Birmingham has seen regular demonstrations on Fridays as part of the School Strike 4 Climate movement started by Greta, and today saw the biggest crowd assembled yet in Victoria Square before a march through the city.

Amongst the protest organisers from the Birmingham Strike 4 Climate group was 17-year-old Imogen Hodgkins from Sutton Coldfield, who said: “It’s a huge movement and today we are seeing even more people getting involved.  Everyone is realising that climate change is the biggest threat we all face.”
Local councillors were also at the demonstration, including Labour Councillor for Moseley and Birmingham Youth Champion Kerry Jenkins. Speaking to WhatsOn, she said: “We’ve worked really hard to ensure that young people’s voices are heard, and it’s not just about them being heard but it’s about them being listened to as well. It’s taken young people to actually motivate everybody else to realise what danger the planet is in.”
She added: “This is about actually putting pressure on the government to come up with a new green deal.”
Also calling for this was Councillor Waseem Zaffar, Cabinet Member for Transport and Environment, who highlighted that Birmingham City Council declared a climate emergency this summer, and has also announced a new climate taskforce which will draw up an action plan on how the city can become carbon neutral by 2030.

Reacting to the scale of today’s Global Climate Strike on Instagram, Greta Thunberg wrote: “Early numbers say 400’000 across Australia. 100’000 in Berlin. 100’000 in London. 50’000 in Hamburg. And preliminary number in Germany is 1,4 million people!!! But it’s beyond huge everywhere!!!! In every city. Every town…Together we are changing the world.”
> Photos by Sam Merricks