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global climate strike
Fridays for Future Plans Global Climate Strike During COP30 in Brazil
"A just transition is not a luxury or a campaign to be used for greenwashing; it's a matter of survival and securing our future," said a movement member in the host country.
Jul 29, 2025
The Fridays for Future movement announced this week that it is planning the next Global Climate Strike for November 14, the first Friday during the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference in Belém, Brazil.
The movement began in 2018, with then-teenage Greta Thunberg's solo protest at the Swedish parliament, which inspired millions of people to hold similar school strikes for climate action around the world.
The U.N. summit, COP30, is set to run from November 10-21. Brazil's website for the conference states that "the main challenges include aligning the commitments of developed and developing countries in relation to climate finance, ensuring that emission reduction targets are compatible with climate science, and dealing with the socio-economic impacts of climate change on vulnerable populations."
On November 14, "under the banner #JustTransitionNow, young people around the world will mobilize to demand urgent, justice-centered action to phase out fossil fuels and build a sustainable future for all," according to a Monday statement from Fridays for Future.
"Global leaders must stop listening to fossil fuel lobbyists... It's time they start listening to science, to young people, and to traditional communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis."
According to the movement, the upcoming global strike will highlight the urgent need to:
- Accelerate the phase-out of fossil fuels: End the financing and expansion of coal, oil, and gas projects.
- Massively invest in renewable energy: Call for a significant increase in clean, affordable energy for all.
- Ensure a just transition for workers and communities: Safeguard livelihoods and promote social justice in the shift to a green economy.
- Advance climate justice for the Global South: Demand reparations and financial support for developing countries disproportionately affected by the climate crisis.
"Global leaders must stop listening to fossil fuel lobbyists or seeking alliances with groups like OPEC+," said Daniel Holanda of Fridays for Future Brazil, referring to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other leading oil exporters.
"It's time they start listening to science, to young people, and to traditional communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis," Holanda added. "A just transition is not a luxury or a campaign to be used for greenwashing; it's a matter of survival and securing our future."
The movement's announcement of the next strike follows last week's landmark advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ)—the U.N.'s primary judicial organ—that countries have a legal obligation to take cooperative action against the "urgent and existential threat" of human-caused planetary heating.
"We now have a common foundation based on the rule of law, releasing us from the limitations of individual nations' political interests that have dominated climate action," said Ralph Regenvanu, a minister in Vanuatu, which introduced the U.N. General Assembly resolution that led to the opinion. "This moment will drive stronger action and accountability to protect our planet and peoples."
Plans for the strike also come as U.S. President Donald Trump's administration and congressional Republicans work to undo the limited progress that the United States has made in terms of taking accountability for being the biggest historical contributor to climate pollution.
In addition to the United States ditching the Paris agreement, again, Trump's return to power has meant the elimination of the State Department's Office of Global Change. The latter move, CNN reported Tuesday, "leaves the world's largest historical polluter with no official presence" at COP30.
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'Back With a Bang': Climate Marches Kick Off Worldwide as Global South Seeks Reparations
"It is unconscionable that Global North governments have continuously rejected their responsibility to deliver adequate climate finance for the Global South."
Sep 20, 2024
Climate protesters across the world hit the streets on Friday to kick off this year's Global Climate Strike ahead of the opening of high-level United Nations General Assembly meetings next week, where climate finance for the Global South is on the agenda.
Protests for climate justice were planned across 50 countries, with Germany alone seeing more than 100 rallies that together drew some 75,000 people. The protests were spearheaded by the youth-led group Fridays for Future (FFF), started by Greta Thunberg in 2018. The New York chapter of the group marched across the Brooklyn Bridge Friday afternoon aiming to "tear down the pillars of the fossil fuel industry."
One of the main climate items on the international agenda this year regards financing for Global South countries that are disproportionately impacted by climate breakdown. The Climate Action Network International on Friday called for Global North countries—which are responsible for the vast majority of historical emissions—to pay $5 trillion per year to Global South countries in climate reparations.
"It is unconscionable that Global North governments have continuously rejected their responsibility to deliver adequate climate finance for the Global South," Lidy Nacpil, the Philippines-based coordinator of the Asian Peoples Movement on Debt and Development, said in a statement.
"If developed nations are serious about solving the problem of climate change, as they claim to be, they should agree to a climate finance target that covers the costs of mitigation, adaptation, just transition, and loss and damage," she added. "The Global South is owed trillions—not billions."
Today in Berlin! This is big. It’s not easy being a climate activist these days yet hope is all around. #climatestrike #nowforfuture pic.twitter.com/A9jze0yts7
— Luisa Neubauer (@Luisamneubauer) September 20, 2024
The UNGA meetings will set the stage for negotiations at the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan in November.
Advocates criticized rich countries for their unwillingness to provide meaningful levels of finance to the Global South following preliminary talks in Bonn, Germany in June.
A study published in Nature last year found that even if all countries decarbonize by 2050, Global North countries would by that time collectively owe Global South countries $192 trillion in climate reparations. This analysis is the basis for the $5 trillion annual payout sought by campaigners.
The New York marchers on Friday chanted climate protest favorites such as "What do we want? Climate justice. When do we want it? Now" and "The people, united, will never be defeated" as they crossed the Brooklyn Bridge. They carried banners with messages such as "Tear Down Fossil Fuels" and "We Strike for the Future."
The most specific demand issued by the New York protesters on Friday was for Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, to sign the Climate Change Superfund Act, which would require polluting companies in the state to pay into a fund that could be used for extreme weather resiliency and preparation projects. The state Legislature has already passed the bill, and it awaits only the governor's signature. Democrats have also proposed a similar measure at the federal level.
There's some diversity in the political makeup of the global FFF protests, which, even just in New York, include people from a wide array of organizations. The German chapter has distanced itself from comments Thunberg made about Israel's war on Gaza, which she called a genocide. She was arrested at a pro-Palestine rally in Stockholm earlier this month.
FFF Germany did take a swipe at the far-right, which has been ascendant in the country in recent years, running on an anti-immigrant platform, and the national government, led by the center-left Social Democratic Party.
"The climate crisis is the greatest challenge of our time, not right-wing debates about migration," the group wrote on social media on Friday. "If the climate targets were a border, the government would have closed it long ago. We remain loud for climate protection!"
FFF and other climate activist groups have not been able to sustain the numbers they reached in 2019, when coordinated strikes across the world reached record numbers.
Though Friday's actions were smaller, they gave hope to movement veterans. Writer and climate organizer Bill McKibben, remarking on the large number of protesters in Germany, wrote on social media that school strikes were "back with a bang."
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'Tomorrow Is Too Late': Climate Strikers Target Fossil Fuel Financing Worldwide
"The capitalistic system continuously puts profit over people," says Fridays for Future. "The Global North's fossil finance is the cause of the climate crisis, neocolonial exploitation, wars, and human rights violations."
Mar 03, 2023
"It's time to end fossil finance because #TomorrowIsTooLate!"
That's the takeaway message from climate strikers who took to the streets worldwide on Friday to demand an immediate end to the financing of all fossil fuel projects amid a worsening global emergency largely driven by coal, gas, and oil.
"The capitalistic system continuously puts profit over people," the youth-led Fridays for Future movement said in a statement. "Corporations' greed for more profit is driving the destruction of ecosystems and the climate. At the same time, frontline communities are paying the highest price while being the most affected by the climate crisis."
\u201c#FridaysForFuture in Stockholm on the day of the global strike!\u201d— David Fopp (@David Fopp) 1677842092
\u201cGlobal Climate Strike! #TomorrowIsTooLate!\n\nOne whole day of different strike locations all calling to junk the mining act of 1995! #IpamanaHuwagIpamina \n\nEnd climate imperialism!\u201d— Mitzi Jonelle Tan #EndClimateImperialism (@Mitzi Jonelle Tan #EndClimateImperialism) 1677852450
"The Global North's fossil finance is the cause of the climate crisis, neocolonial exploitation, wars, and human rights violations," Fridays for Future continued. Acknowledging the plight of frontline communities, the group argued that "as a global climate justice movement, it is our responsibility to join their fight and amplify their voices and demands."
The international movement—spurred by Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who as a teenager engaged in a solitary strike outside her country's parliament—highlighted some specific battles against polluters' exploitation:
From the fight against fracking in the indigenous territories of the Esto'k Gna tribe in North America, to local resistance in Huasteca Potosina in Mexico or Vaca Muerta in Argentina; the resistance against the [East African Crude Oil Pipeline] in Uganda and Tanzania; the fight against gas fields in front of the coast of Senegal or LNG terminals in Mozambique; the resistance of the Peruvian people against deforestation and oil drilling in the Amazon; to local fisher’s fight against TEEPSA in South Africa—all these fights are connected and their cause is finance. Fossil fuel corporations like Shell, TotalEnergies, Repsol, Perenco, or Chevron can only realize these projects because of money that is provided to them by banks, insurers, and investors.
In addition to demanding an end to fossil fuel financing, Fridays for Future is calling on the historically largest emitters of planet-heating pollution and Global North countries to "unconditionally cancel the Global South's financial debt" and provide reparations.
"Ending fossil finance is not a question of technical capacity but it is a matter of political will," the group said. "From voting to civil disobedience, we call on everyone to grassroots organize and act against fossil capitalism through the means of action suitable for them. For climate justice, we need to break the influence of fossil fuel corporations, banks, and insurers."
\u201cSchool Children from all over #Pakistan have sent us pictures for #GlobalClimateStrike, this means awareness drives are successfully running and young minds are being built to understand #climatechange. \n#WorldWildlifeDay #Fridays4Future \n#TomorrowIsTooLate \n@GretaThunberg\u201d— FridaysForFuture Pakistan (@FridaysForFuture Pakistan) 1677827656
\u201cWell done to the young activists who marched in Dublin today as part of #GlobalClimateStrike - calling to #EndFossilFinance & for climate justice.\nThe time left in which we can prevent global temp rises exceeding 1.5\u00b0C is rapidly vanishing. #TomorrowIsTooLate \n\n#FridaysForFuture\u201d— Brid Smith TD (@Brid Smith TD) 1677862192
Various groups including global and local arms of Climate Action Network, Friends of the Earth, World Wide Fund for Nature, and 350.org supported the strike in the streets and on social media, sharing updates from demonstrations with the hashtags #FridaysForFuture, #GlobalClimateStrike, and #TomorrowIsTooLate.
"No action is too small to make a difference," tweeted Ugandan activist Vanessa Nakate.
African civil society groups—already pressuring leaders across the continent to ditch plans for further fossil fuel projects—not only joined the global strike but also organized events including "art exhibitions highlighting the role of renewable energy as one of the key solutions to the climate crisis, public dialogue on fossil fuels, and the screening of a documentary on the planned East African Crude Oil Pipeline," according to 350.org.
\u201cThe young generation bearing the brunt of a Climate catastrophy they didn't cause have spoken. Can you hear our voices? \n\nWe want #ClimateAction and we want it NOW! \n#GlobalClimateStrike #ClimateJustice #PeopleNotProfits\n#FridaysForFuture #ClimateStrike\u201d— Fridays For Future Uganda (@Fridays For Future Uganda) 1677841863
\u201cToday, youth from @Wanavijiji_sdi joined @fridays_kenya and other partners in the fight for a better future. It's time for us to take action on the climate crisis because #TomorrowIsTooLate. \n\n#WanavijijiVoices #VCA #JustClimateAction #WangariMaathaiDay\u201d— Muungano wa Wanavijiji (@Muungano wa Wanavijiji) 1677846505
"The role of financial systems in the climate crisis is undeniable, as they continue to channel huge amounts to the fossil fuel industry, which is destroying our planet as it profits from coal, oil, and gas exploration," declared 350.org regional director Landry Ninteretse. "We are calling on financial institutions involved in fossil projects on the continent, such as the East African Crude Oil Pipeline, to rule out support for such projects."
"In addition, African nations must recognize that phasing out obsolete and harmful fossil fuels and leveraging the renewable energy potential at our disposal is key to keeping catastrophic impacts of the climate crisis at bay," he said. "The just transition powered by clean and decentralized renewables is urgent for Africa as the region most affected and vulnerable to the climate crisis."
"We cannot afford to gamble with the future of our planet and humanity," he warned, "by allowing or supporting the continued expansion of fossil fuels."
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