Students worldwide are planning to skip class Friday and take to the streets to protest their governments' failure to take sufficient action against global warming.
The co-ordinated 'school strike' was inspired by 16-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who began holding solitary demonstrations outside the Swedish parliament last year.
Friday's rallies are expected to be one of the biggest international actions yet. A websiteco-ordinating the protests lists events in more than 100 countries, from New Zealand to the United States. But scientists have backed the protests, with thousands signing petitions in support of the students in Britain, Finland and Germany.
Scientists have warned for decades that current levels of greenhouse gas emissions are unsustainable, so far with little effect. In 2015, world leaders agreed in Paris to a goal of keeping the Earth's global temperature rise by the end of the century well below 2 degrees Celsius . German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron have publicly welcomed the student protests, even as their policies have been criticized as too limited by environmental activists.
Other changes needed to curb greenhouse gas emissions include ramping up renewable energy production, reigning in over-consumption culture now spreading beyond the industrialized West and changing diets, experts say.
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