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.

02:13 [BLANK_AUDIO]