Youth activists protest to demand action on climate as big events open in NYC

[September 20, 2024]  By SETH BORENSTEIN and ALEXA ST. JOHN

NEW YORK (AP) — Activists geared up Friday for protests around the world to demand action on climate change just as a pair of major weeklong climate events were getting underway in New York City.

The actions in Berlin, Brussels, Rio de Janeiro, New Delhi and many other cities were being organized by the youth-led group Fridays for Future, and included the group's New York chapter, which planned a march across the Brooklyn Bridge followed by a rally that organizers hoped would attract at least 1,000 people. More protests were planned Saturday and Sunday.

New York is hosting Climate Week NYC, an annual event that promotes climate action, at the same time the U.N. General Assembly takes up the issue on several fronts, including raising trillions of dollars to aid poorer countries suffering the most from climate change.

In Berlin, dozens of people took to the streets although in fewer numbers than in previous years. Activists held up signs saying “Save the Climate” and “Coal is Over!” as they watched a gig put on outside the German Chancellor's Office. Protesters in London held up letters spelling out “Pay up," calling for the country to pay more to adapt to climate change and transition away from fossil fuels.

The New York protest wants to take aim at “the pillars of fossil fuels” — companies that pollute, banks that fund them, and leaders who are failing on climate, said Helen Mancini, an organizer and a senior at the city's Stuyvesant High School.

Youth climate protests started in August 2018 when Greta Thunberg, then an unknown 15-year-old, left school to stage a sit-down strike outside of the Swedish parliament to demand climate action and end fossil fuel use.

A man works on a painting as he takes part in a Global Climate Strike protest of the Fridays For Future movement near the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

In the six years since Thunberg founded what became Fridays for Future, global carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels has increased by about 2.15%, according to Global Carbon Project, a group of scientists who monitor carbon pollution. The growth of emissions has slowed compared to previous decades and experts anticipate peaking soon, which is a far cry from the 43% reduction needed to keep temperature increases to an agreed-upon limit.

Since 2019, carbon dioxide emissions from coal have increased by nearly 1 billion tons (900 million metric tons), while natural gas emissions have increased slightly and oil pollution has dropped a tiny amount, according to the International Energy Agency. That growth has been driven by China, India and developing nations.

But emissions from advanced or industrialized economies have been falling and in 2023 were the lowest in more than 50 years, according to the IEA. Coal emissions in rich countries are down to levels seen around the year 1900 and the United Kingdom next month is set to shutter its last coal plant.

In the past five years, clean energy sources have grown twice as fast as fossil fuels, with both solar and wind individually growing faster than fossil fuel-based electricity, according to the IEA.

Since Thunberg started her protest six years ago, Earth has warmed more than half a degree Fahrenheit (0.29 degrees Celsius) with last year setting a record for the hottest year and this year poised to break that mark, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the European climate agency Copernicus.
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Associated Press journalist David Keyton in Berlin contributed to this report.

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