Aerial view of climate strikers filling one of the main streets in Hamburg, Germany on 20 September 2019. Photo: CityNewsTV / Picture Alliance / Getty Images
Aerial view of climate strikers filling one of the main streets in Hamburg, Germany on 20 September 2019. Photo: CityNewsTV / Picture Alliance / Getty Images

By Eliza Barclay and Brian Resnick
21 September 2019

(Vox) – Friday was a truly historic day for the potent new social movement committed to sounding a global alarm about the climate crisis. The Global Climate Strikes, inspired by Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, age 16, may end up being the largest mass protest for action on global warming in history.

The exact number of participants worldwide will be hard to get. But the event was truly global and astonishingly well organized: There were over 2,500 events scheduled in over 163 countries on all seven continents.

Greta Thunberg outside of the Swedish parliament (Sveriges Riksdag), 20 August 2018. She was supposed to start school again after a long summer break, but instead of rejoining her classmates, the 15-year-old seated herself against the stone facade of the Swedish Parliament’s main building in central Stockholm, with a sign that read, “School Strike for the Climate”. Photo: Adam Johansson
Greta Thunberg outside of the Swedish parliament (Sveriges Riksdag), 20 August 2018. She was supposed to start school again after a long summer break, but instead of rejoining her classmates, the 15-year-old seated herself against the stone facade of the Swedish Parliament’s main building in central Stockholm, with a sign that read, “School Strike for the Climate”. Photo: Adam Johansson

And according to 350.org, a major environmental advocacy group and a co-organizer of today’s events, more than 4 million people worldwide took part.

There were 40,000 people striking in France; 2,600 in Ukraine; 5,000 in South Africa; 10,000 in Turkey; 5,000 in Japan; 100,000 in London; 330,000 in Australia; 250,000 in NYC; and 1.4 million in Germany, 350.org told us.

(You can see photos of the strikes around the world here.)

Again, those numbers come from the event organizers so take them with a grain of salt. That said, it’s clear that Friday’s actions were enormous and spanned the globe. Kids and adults were protesting from Uganda to India, from Peru to Grenada, from Spain to Anchorage. There was even a small demonstration on the Antarctic continent.

China, the largest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions, was noticeably absent from the images of protesters shared by Thunberg and other organizers on Twitter. According to the Guardian, “No protests were authorized in China … but Zheng Xiaowen of the China Youth Climate Action Network said Chinese youth would take action one way or another.” […]

Young people march to Parliament in Cape Town, South Africa during the Global Climate Strike on 20 September 2019. Photo: Brenton Geach / Gallo Images / Getty Images
Young people march to Parliament in Cape Town, South Africa during the Global Climate Strike on 20 September 2019. Photo: Brenton Geach / Gallo Images / Getty Images

It was inspiring to see so many young people — people who may live to see a radically different world in the second half of this century — tell the grownups of the world to heed the warnings of scientists and limit devastating warming by accelerating decarbonization in the next decade. On Monday, at the UN Climate Action Summit, we’ll find out how many were listening. [more]

How big was the global climate strike? 4 million people, activists estimate.