Hundreds of thousands of people in the United States are leaving school and work today to demand that leaders in the U.S. and across the world take action to address the climate crisis. The demonstrations today represent the largest climate strike in U.S. history and kick off a week of sustained international actions to call for transformative changes to climate policy. Hundreds of thousands of people are striking in over 4500 locations across the globe with large turn outs already in Sydney, Dhaka, Manila, and across Europe.
New York, Boston, Washington D.C., and San Francisco are expected to have the largest turnouts, with thousands of people attending in each of those locations. But the Strike itself is nationwide, with more than 1,000 locations in all 50 states, Washington DC, Puerto Rico, and Guam. There were more than a dozen strike locations in Puerto Rico alone, commemorating the second anniversary of Hurricane Maria.
The Climate Strike earned the support of elected leaders, businesses, and schools. Companies like Patagonia. Lush Cosmetics, and Ben and Jerry's are closed today to encourage employees to join the strike. The UN Secretary General applauded the action, days before world leaders gather the UN Climate Action Summit to discuss climate action.
The Climate Strike Coalition released a set of policy demands ahead of the strike, calling for transformative climate action. The demands are the first time that such a broad coalition of youth groups have coalesced around a Green New Deal. The demands include a strong focus on protecting people, through saving indigenous land, helping frontline communities, and supporting a just transition.
The strikes take place during a surge of direct actions to demand climate solutions. Many of the youth groups involved in today's events have been striking for more than a year.
In the U.S., the strike sare coordinated by Future Coalition, the U.S. youth-led strikes includes Earth Uprising, Fridays for Future USA, Extinction Rebellion-Youth, Sunrise, Zero Hour,Indigenous Youth Council and Earth Guardians. The Youth Climate Strike Coalition is steering the national campaign, with active support, participation and collaboration from an Adult Climate Strike Coalition, which includes leading national organizations such as 350.org, Greenpeace, SEIU and March On. Youth and adults, institutional and grassroots organizations, climate-focused and social justice groups, are coming together as a unified front to demand transformative action on climate.
