Vancouver Island students join global strike on Friday to demand urgent action on climate change

Students around Vancouver Island are marching through the streets to demand leaders take urgent action to fight climate change.

In Victoria, hundreds of students walked out at 11 a.m., A “die-in” to launch global climate strike week started at noon at the B.C. legislature.

The youth are also staging an intersection occupation at Government and Belleville, from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m., representing “11 hours of action for the 11 short years until 2030.”

The second Global Climate Strike is also occurring around the world. It follows a similar event in March and comes in advance of next week’s United Nations climate summit.

Organizers estimate more than 300,000 people took to the streets of Australia in what would be the country’s biggest demonstration since the Iraq War in 2003.

In Berlin, some 80-thousand people gathered in front of the landmark Brandenburg Gate.

The Global Climate Strike is partly inspired by Swedish teenage activist Greta Thunberg, who will attend a Montreal rally next Friday.

Thunberg has staged weekly demonstrations over the past year under the hashtag #FridaysForFuture.

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