After six months, Friday’s youth-led strike – promising 1,000 actions spread over 100 countries – could be a "landmark moment" in a grassroots campaign to goad world leaders into confronting the threat of global warming.
Now she’s become the unexpected founder of an international youth movement. Since the summer thousands of young people have spent their Fridays striking in the name of climate change, signposting their activism with the hashtag #FridaysforFuture. Some step outside their school buildings for just a moment; others throng together, marching through the streets by the thousands. But they’re all pushing for the same thing: Meaningful action to stop the shadow of climate change that emerge over their young heads.
She always criticized the lack of initiative of politicians and leaders in face of climate change. Because of her activism, she was nominated one of the world’s 25 most influential teenagers of 2018 by Time magazine, and in March 2019 she became the youngest candidate ever for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Fridays for future are so powerful because it is changing everything and inspiring many adults to support this campaign. Besides the many people joining the demonstrations, a number of nonprofit associations have also announced their support to the movement. For example, the newly created Scientist4Future association has collected over 23.000 support signatures from scientists in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. “The concerns of the young protesters are justified”, it said in a recent statement. And on March 14, the European Parliament accepted a Commission proposal to adopt a net zero carbon emission strategy, raise the emission targets for 2030, and achieve climate neutrality by 2050.