16-yr-old activist leads campaign, supporters across 150 countries

The primary demand of protesters across 150 countries participating in the Fridays For Future movement is to put a stop on burning fossil fuels and alert local,

The primary demand of protesters across 150 countries participating in the Fridays For Future movement is to put a stop on burning fossil fuels and alert local, state and national governments to take immediate action on climate change, ahead of the United Nations (UN) emergency climate summit in New York on September 23.

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The summit will encourage countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions further and intensify existing targets.

A similar strike has been planned on September 27.

A climate crisis is being faced by the world as global average temperatures are rising at an alarming pace, leading to heat waves, melting of glaciers and ice sheets, sea-level rise, droughts, floods, and extreme weather events, all altering the face of the planet as we see it. A UN report from May estimates that one million plant and animal species are at the risk of extinction.

The movement is led by 16-year-old Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg, who single-handedly campaigned against climate change throughout 2018 by protesting before the Swedish Parliament.

In a video released by Thunberg and British writer George Monbiot on Thursday, Thunberg identified three specific natural climate solutions — protect (tropical forests from being destroyed like the Amazon fires), restore (help ecosystems bounce back combined with natural regeneration), and fund (stop funding for destroying nature and pay for what helps it). “It is that simple,” she said.

Rising levels of carbon dioxide, with the use of fossil fuels, have been altering global and regional weather patterns since mid to late 20th century. Land and ocean temperatures have increased at an average rate of 0.07 degrees Celsius per decade since 1880 and twice as high per decade since 1981. The 10 warmest years have occurred since 1998 with 2018 being the fourth warmest on record after 2015, 2016 (warmest year on record with global average temperature about 1.1 degree Celsius higher than the pre-industrial period), and 2017. Warming of oceans and melting of ice sheets is plunging fish stocks and destroying coastal livelihoods.

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change mandates average global temperatures to be below a 1.5 degrees Celsius rise to ensure irreparable damage due to climate change within the next decade.

“There is a magic machine that sucks carbon out of the air and builds itself. It’s called a tree,” said Monbiot in the video while explaining that mangroves, coral reefs, forests and seabeds take carbon out of the air and lock it away.

“Nature is a tool we can use to repair our broken climate,” added Monbiot.