Climate Change Protests Sweep Across the Globe Amid Escalating Concerns

Climate activists are gearing up for what they hope will be some of the largest climate protests in years, spanning nationwide marches, school walkouts, and a significant mobilization effort in New York City this weekend. These events follow a summer marked by record-breaking global warming events that have deepened concerns about climate change.

Xiye Bastida, a 21-year-old climate activist from Philadelphia, described the summer as “unprecedented” due to extreme heatwaves, hurricanes in unusual locations, and skies turned red from smoke. Advocates around the world are hoping that hundreds of thousands of people will participate in the global days of action occurring between Friday and Sunday, with over 200 protests scheduled internationally.

In Berlin, Germany, up to 24,000 protesters took to the streets on Friday, demanding stronger measures to combat climate change.

In the United States, the primary focus of the protests is on calling for the Biden Administration to reject new fossil fuel projects, phase out fossil fuels, and declare a climate emergency. Organizers anticipate that these marches will be the largest climate protests witnessed in the country over the last five years.

The global protests are part of a broader call for political leaders to swiftly phase out fossil fuels. UN Secretary-General António Guterres emphasized the urgency of the situation, stating, “Floods, droughts, heat waves, extreme storms, and wildfires are going from bad to worse, breaking records with alarming frequency. There is nothing natural about the new scale of these disasters. They are the price of humanity’s fossil fuel addiction.”

The climate activism coincides with the United Nations General Assembly session scheduled for September 20, focusing on global participation and collaboration in climate action, along with the fifteenth annual Climate Week in New York City.

Aru Shiney-Ajay, deputy campaigns director for the Sunrise Movement, pointed out that young people are increasingly alarmed by climate change, adding, “Young people are freaked out by climate change.”

As the impact of climate change becomes more tangible, large-scale public demonstrations are expected to rise. However, alongside these large protests, there has been a rise in smaller, attention-grabbing actions designed to raise awareness, such as individuals gluing themselves to highways or car dealerships.

Despite the increasing urgency, these protests have generally remained non-violent, with climate activists advocating for change through peaceful means. The movement to combat climate change gained significant momentum with the emergence of Climate Strikes in 2018, led by Swedish high schooler Greta Thunberg.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic temporarily slowed down the climate movement, the 2023 protests are poised to be a major resurgence in cities around the world.

Noah Gordon, co-director of the climate program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C., believes this weekend’s protests will be significant, given the stark reality of climate change facing humanity.

“I would expect there to be large protests, especially with the summer we just had,” Gordon remarked. Climate change, once a distant concern, has now become an undeniable and immediate global challenge.

This weekend’s global climate protests represent a renewed and urgent call for climate action on a scale not seen in recent years.