School children plan countrywide climate strike next week

Schoolchildren and students plan to stage climate strikes in at least 10 locations around the country as part of a global day of climate action next week.

The September 20th rallies confirmed so far will see young people gather in Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway city centres as well as in Drogheda, Tralee, Kenmare, Ennis, Navan and Dundalk.

Around 60 campaign groups have also pledged to hold events in community venues and workplaces to enable adults to demonstrate their support.

Aine O’Gorman of the Stop Climate Chaos Coalition said they hoped numbers would exceed the 15,000 who turned out for the first national day of climate action last March.

“On September 20th we hope to empty schools and workplaces and fill the streets with people demanding our Government take climate action more seriously. Our house is on fire – let’s act like it,” she said.

The Global Climate Strike, called by teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg, will take place as government ministers and business leaders, including an Irish delegation, head for New York for a United Nations Summit Climate Action Summit.

School students from across Ireland rally in Dublin city as they join other youngsters in worldwide protests aimed at persuading political leaders to act now to stop what they see as the growing threat of global climate change.

The summit is being convened to try to inject renewed energy into global climate action efforts as the carbon reduction targets set down under the Paris Agreement begin to slip out of reach.

Countries and corporations are being asked to renew and scale up their commitments to the agreement.

A youth summit, to be addressed by Greta Thunberg who has travelled to New York by boat for the occasion, will take place on September 21 and the full summit will follow on September 23.