The Global Climate Strike for Future (in Photos)

On Friday, March 15th, students gathered in 2,099 cities and towns across 123 countries to participate in the Global Climate Strike for Future, protesting a lack of climate awareness and demanding radical climate action from government officials.

The international campaign began in August of 2018 when Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg skipped school every day for three weeks to sit in front of the Swedish parliament protesting the country’s failure to act on the climate crisis. She broadcasted her protest on social media using the hashtags #FridaysForFuture and #Climatestrike, and decided to continue striking until the Swedish government would enact a safe pathway to limit global temperature rise to well below two degrees Celsius, the threshold called for in the Paris Agreement. Students around the world began to follow suit.

The United States Youth Climate Strike is demanding the implementation of the Green New Deal, the declaration of a national emergency on climate change, compulsory climate change education from kindergarten through eighth grade, an end to fossil fuel infrastructure projects, the incorporation of greenhouse gas emissions reductions set by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2018, the preservation of public lands and wildlife, and the protection of clean water.

“We are striking because if the social order is disrupted by our refusal to attend school, then the system is forced to face the climate crisis and enact change,” reads a section of the mission of the U.S. Youth Climate Strike.

Here is a look at some of Friday’s youth climate strikes in cities around the world.