Thousands of young students marched on the streets of Brussels on Thursday, demanding concrete action to tackle climate change. According to news reports, the students marched under the banner, #YouthForClimate. They raised their concerns on the issue and demanded that politicians take more action. The participants wore colorful banners with a clear message: “There is no planet B.”
The action was reportedly initiated by two students from the Royal Atheneum in Mortsel, Kyra (19) and Anuna (17), inspired by Greta Turnberg, a 15-year-old Swedish girl who addressed the recent climate summit in Katowice, Poland. VRT News reported that five days ago, Kyra and Anuna gave a call for a protest gathering in Brussels on January 10. The enthusiastic participants who gathered for the protests eventually took out a march in Brussels chanting slogans such as “Whoever does not jump is CO2″ , ” Fossil fuel it’s time to go” , “Change the system, not the climate.”
RedFox, a youth movement in Belgium, said, “It was young schoolchildren who launched the movement protesting for the climate. In different schools in Antwerp, Mechelen, Brussels, young people are organizing and launching a movement. [It is a movement of] young people who [want to] take [back] their fate.”
The Workers Party of Belgium (PTB) also applauded the students in a Facebook . “There’s still time, but [it is] out of the question to wait with arms crossed and let the big business destroy the planet. Schoolchildren full of ambition and courage are calling young people to take [control of] their fate, organize and mobilize for their future,” the party said.
On December 3, tens of thousands of activists from various parts of Europe took to the streets of Brussels under the banner #Red is the new green, while the 24th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) (COP24) was on in Poland.
While addressing the COP24 gathering at Katowice, young Greta Thunberg pointed out that “our civilization is being sacrificed for the opportunity of a very small number of people to continue making enormous amounts of money. Our biosphere is being sacrificed so that rich people in some countries can live in luxury. It is the sufferings of the many which pay for the luxuries of the few”.
