climate change
Students in Dimapur taking part in a symbolic rally on Friday in solidarity with the worldwide protest demanding that governments take immediate action to limit the harmful effects of manmade climate change. (Photo Courtesy: WC Humtsoe)
Morung Express News
Dimapur | September 20
As students across the globe took to the streets kicking off a worldwide strike demanding action on climate change on Friday, September 20, students in Nagaland also expressed solidarity with a symbolic rally.
The students’ rally ‘Global Week Friday for Future on Climate Change’ saw juniors and senior high school students of five Schools in Dimapur and others gathering at Bethesda Higher Secondary School Campus, Dimapur to join the global movement.
The rally in Dimapur was organised by the Bethesda Youth Welfare Centre (BYWC), Dimapur with support from North East Dialogue Forum.
Around 200 students along with 8 teachers and youth volunteers took part in the solidarity rally, informed WC Humtsoe, who is the Executive Director of BYWC and also the Convener of NEDF, Nagaland State Chapter. He was the thematic speaker at the event.
The participating schools included Government Higher Secondary School; Charisma School, Bethesda Higher Secondary School, Lorna School and Hayiyan Elementary School as well as young volunteers from Bethesda Youth Welfare Centre.
“Stop talking, Act Now,” read a placard the students were holding, while another read, “Politicians, Act Now, Our Home is Burning,” and another that reminded that “Climate Change is Real.”
Earlier, a discussion on the issue was held with Jessi T Murry, Director Green Succession, Nagaland (Green SONS) and James Murry, Executive Director, Zion Welfare Society as panellists. It concluded with the screening of a short documentary film on climate change.
Listen to the scientists: protests in 150 countries
Inspired by the 16-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, people, mostly students, in about 150 countries kicked off a day of worldwide protest on Friday demanding the “governments take immediate action to limit the harmful effects of manmade climate change.”
Tens of thousands of students took to the streets across Asia and Europe on a global strike demanding world leaders gathering at a UN climate summit adopt urgent measures to avert an environmental catastrophe, Reuters reported.
The protests kicked off in the Pacific islands - some of the nations most threatened by rising sea levels - and Australia, where social media posts showed huge demonstrations across the country, from the big coastal cities of Melbourne and Sydney to outback towns such as Alice Springs, it said.
The strike will culminate in New York when Thunberg, who has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in March for her climate activism, will spearhead a rally at the United Nations headquarters, it added.
On September 18, she also delivered a pointed message before a US congressional hearing on climate change saying: "I don’t want you to listen to me. I want you to listen to the scientists."
‘Fridays for Future’
Thunberg, on August 20, 2018, aged 15 started the ‘Fridays for Future’ movement by skipping school to protest outside parliament for more action against climate change.
Thereafter, she undertook weekly school walkouts to demand government climate-change action and submitted a 2018 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change at the hearing in lieu of testimony, according to a Reuters’ profile of Thunberg.
By November 2018, more than 17,000 students in 24 countries had taken part in Friday school strikes and Thunberg began addressing at high-profile events across Europe, including United Nations climate talks in Poland.
In February 2019, protests directly inspired by Thunberg took place in more than 30 countries, from Sweden to Brazil, India and the United States; in March, it increased to 2 million people across 135 countries.
UN Climate Action Summit
The Climate Action Summit, 2019 is scheduled from September 21-23, in New York with main summit on Monday where world leaders would discuss climate change mitigation strategies, which the UN described as “defining issue of our time and now is the defining moment to do something about it.”
“To boost ambition and accelerate actions to implement the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, UN Secretary-General António Guterres is asking leaders, from government, business and civil society, to come to the 2019 Climate Action Summit on 23 September with plans to address the global climate emergency,” the UN said in an update.
