Global climate protests begin in Australia ahead of UN summit

Government lawmaker Craig Kelly told students, "You are being used and manipulated and everything you are told is a lie. The facts are, there is no link between climate change and drought; polar bears are increasing in number."

Australian universities have said they will not penalize students for attending Friday's rallies.
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Friday (September 20): As a day of worldwide demonstrations calling for action to guard against climate change began ahead a UN summit, which will be held in New York, tens of thousands of protesters gathered today at rallies around Australia. Also similar rallies were planned today in cities around the globe.

In the United States more than 800 events were planned Friday, while in Germany more than 400 rallies were expected. The ‘Global Strike 4 Climate’ said protests were staged in 110 towns and cities across Australia on Friday, with organizers demanding government and business commit to a target of net zero carbon emissions by 2030.

Some of the first rallies in what is being billed as a “global climate strike” kicked off in Australia’s largest city, Sydney, and the national capital, Canberra. Australian demonstrators called for their nation, which is the world’s largest exporter of coal and liquid natural gas, to take more drastic action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The protests are partly inspired by the activism of Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg, who has staged weekly demonstrations under the heading “Fridays for Future” over the past year, calling on world leaders to step up their efforts against climate change. Many who have followed her lead are students, but the movement has since spread to civil society groups.

Australian universities have said they will not penalize students for attending Friday’s rallies, while Australian schools vary on what action, if any, they take against children who skip classes to attend demonstrations.

The demonstrations come as Australia’s center-left opposition mulls abandoning its policy, rejected at May elections, of reducing Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by 45 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s conservative coalition won a surprise third term with a commitment to reduce emissions by a more modest 26% to 28% in the same time frame.

Government lawmaker Craig Kelly on Thursday told students who planned to join Friday’s climate strike that “you are being used and manipulated and everything you are told is a lie.”

“The facts are, there is no link between climate change and drought; polar bears are increasing in number.Today’s generation is safer from extreme weather than at any time in human history” Kelly told Parliament.

Some companies are encouraging their employees to join the climate strike. Australian Council of Trade Unions, which represents labor unions, said it supported employees taking time off work to protest.

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