Students strike for climate action
It's been five years since the first national school strike for climate action and now student protesters are again rallying around the country.
Transcript
00:00 The hashtag of today's event is #ShiftThePower and protesters are really calling on governments
00:07 right across Australia to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels.
00:11 As part of that they say they want to see an end to no new coal, oil or gas projects
00:17 approved and say they're bitterly disappointed by the fact that the Federal Labor Government
00:21 has so far approved four new coal mines this year.
00:23 They say they want that to stop.
00:26 They're also calling for real carbon cuts, not just a reliance on things like carbon
00:31 offsets.
00:32 And they'd also like to see more public money put aside to see a transition from fossil
00:38 fuel jobs into other industries, especially things like renewables.
00:42 And they want to see that funding extended not only to those people who rely, who are
00:47 in those jobs, but also the communities that rely on fossil fuel industries as well.
00:52 Of course this is all coming ahead of the upcoming COP28 environment meeting in the
00:59 UAE.
01:00 That's happening at the end of the month so they'll be really hoping that part of these
01:02 protest actions that are happening right across the country today, that they'll really be
01:07 able to influence governments ahead of that meeting.
01:10 And really driving these protest actions that we're seeing is a growing sense of climate
01:16 anxiety.
01:17 And we're hearing report after report about younger people really starting to feel that
01:22 sense of climate anxiety shifting in as they see what their futures could hold.
01:27 And Penny, we saw huge crowds in September 2019.
01:30 What's the turnout there so far?
01:34 We did.
01:35 Look, that September 2019 was a massive turnout right across the country where we saw tens
01:40 of thousands of people.
01:42 So far in Sydney, we're really only just starting to kick things off here so far.
01:47 So there's probably, I would estimate, there's probably a few hundred people, maybe 300.
01:52 But it does seem to be growing every minute.
01:54 And the idea is that they will, the meeting here, and that they will have a protest march
02:00 through the city to the office of the Federal Environment Minister.
02:05 So that's expected to happen within the next hour.
02:07 So there is certainly growing more and more people as each minute passes.
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