Global climate strike UK 2019 – everything you need to know – The Sun

MILLIONS of activists are set to take to streets across the UK in a global climate crisis protest starting today.

The week-long protest is a campaign to demand action on global warming and the climate crisis. Here's the lowdown…

When is the strike?

The protests kick off today, Friday, September 20, and will continue until September 27.

This is the same date of a UN emergency climate action summit being held in New York.

Where will it take place?

The strikes will be taking place in 130 countries in more than 4,000 locations across the globe.

In the UK, protesters can meet at Millbank in Westminster where the strike will officially kick off at 11am.

At 1pm, a national ‘Climate Alarm’ moment will sound alarms for one full minute.

Politicians and activists are also set to speak.

A family area will be set up in Victoria Tower Gardens with circus workshops, banner-making, puppetry, singing and face-painting.

Other major cities such as Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh and Glasgow will also host protests.

What is it all about?

The movement has been inspired by Swedish schoolgirl and climate activist Greta Thunberg.

Thunberg was behind the Fridays for Future movement which evolved into the Youth Strike 4 Cimate movement.

The young eco-activists have called upon politicians to take climate change seriously, although these demonstrations are for all ages and are thought to draw the biggest crowds yet.

The Global Climate Strike movement intends to "disrupt business" all over the world to raise awareness of the issue.

Who's in support?

Various NGOs, unions, universities and global companies such as Amazon are all behind the cause

Other local community groups, churches and

How can you get involved?

Timings will vary from city to city.

The official Fridays for Future interactive map has all the latest information where users are able to hover over a pin on the map to bring up details of the action.

Information can also be found by searching Twitter for a city or location near you and adding the hashtag #climatestrike.

Who is Greta Thunburg?

Greta Thunberg has become one of the world's most high profile campaigners for action to tackle climate change.

The 16-year-old first hit the headlines in 2018 when she inspired international youth climate strikes and spoke at the Extinction Rebellion protests before she met UK politicians.

Greta was born in Stockholm, Sweden, in 2003.

She shot to fame as the poster-girl for climate change awareness after a picture of her “school strike for climate change” was posted on Facebook by Swedish eco-warrior, Ingmar Rentzhog.

Her strike inspired tens of thousands of students from around the world to join her #FridaysforFuture demonstrations – skipping school every Friday to protest climate change.

Nationwide protests took place earlier this year when thousands of students in the UK skipped school to call on the Government to make tackling climate change a priority.

Greta was driven to take action by a record heatwave in northern Europe and forest fires that ravaged swathes of Swedish land up to the Arctic.

What is global warming and what caused it?

Global warming describes a set of changes to the climate that is causing the Earth to heat up.

This rising of the Earth's temperature is often talked about in the context of the "greenhouse effect" to explain the damage being wreaked on our planet.

Without the greenhouse effect the Earth's surface would be an average of about 60 degrees Fahrenheit cooler, and therefore unlivable.

The effect allows gases in but keeps heat from escaping from the earth, like the glass walls of a greenhouse.

However, over the past century humans have aggravated the greenhouse effect by dramatically increasing the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Human sources of CO2 come from activities such as deforestation and the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas.

Since the Industrial Revolution the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has rocketed by a third.

This rapid rise has had a direct impact on the Earth's average temperature, with potentially catastrophic consequences.


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