Last Friday, November 30, thousands of young people from across Australia decided to skip school as a sign of protest against the Australian government inaction – as they described it – to tackle climate change. 

Although Australia committed to reduce its CO2 emissions by 26-28% on its 2005 levels by 2030, earlier last week the UN announced that the country is falling behind these goals, which were set under the Paris agreement for emissions. As a matter of fact, according to the emission gap report, Australia has made no progress in its climate policy within the last year. 

These young people have received hard criticism from decision-makers, including PM Scott Morrison and Resource Minister Matt Canavan, who said that activism is unnecessary and that students will learn nothing from this experience. 

However, these young people are strongly committed to their cause. When asked why they took part in this protest, they said they are worried because they will be the ones suffering the consequences of the decisions that are made by the government today. They have been learning about climate change for a long time and are now asking the government to acknowledge that climate change is a real issue that needs to be tackled with real solutions.

These Australian students are not the only ones demanding for action. Earlier this year, Greta Thunberg, a 15 year old Swedish also skipped school to raise awareness about climate change in her country.

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