A View from Delhi of the Planetwide Climate Strike

NEW DELHI: Lakhs of students joined environmental activists to strike school last Friday and stage a mass demonstration in hundreds of cities around the planet, sounding a clarion call against climate change before the UN Climate Action Summit that was held in New York.

From New York to Sydney, Cape Town to London, protesters took to the streets to demand urgent action against the ongoing ecological catastrophe.

Over 100,000 protesters in Melbourne

The strike included a Global Week for the Future, aimed at sensitising the public and urging businesses, lawmakers and governments to address the issue of climate change, which is impacting all of us in many different ways.

In India, an estimated 14,000 people from different walks of life, including school children, teenagers and other environmentally conscious citizens participated in at least 26 mega-events and hundreds of smaller demonstrations as part of the global strikes.

Schoolchildren demonstrate in Bombay

In the national capital, one of the most polluted cities in the world, dozens of protesters gathered at the Lodhi Gardens chanting slogans demanding clean air and water and action on climate change.

Others carried banners displaying messages like “Climate Justice Now”, “It’s Our Future” and “There Is No Planet B”, before making their way towards the office of the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change in Jor Bagh.

The Delhi Police intercepted the young activists near the ministry premises, where they staged a strong protest by sitting down and rejoicing in the spirit of the movement.

Police told protesters that they didn’t have a dedicated podium for speakers, nor had they sought “permission” to protest.

Marchers in Delhi

The idea behind the strike was to walk out of classrooms and workplaces and send a clear message to society across India and the world. By raising their voice and emphasising the urgency of the situation, they sought to give people and the powers that be a reality check about the precarious future of human society and life on Earth.

Ordinary people and those in power were urged to take adequate measures and consolidated steps to tackle the menace of climate change and ecological destruction, for a happier and healthier tomorrow.