Edinburgh climate strike: Fridays for Future protesters from all over Scotland to rally in Edinburgh

Young people from all over Scotland are due to gather in Edinburgh on Friday (September 23) in the latest wave of global climate strikes.

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They will hold a rally outside the City Chambers at 11am to protest at climate inaction and will highlight the catastrophic flooding in Pakistan as one example of how natural events are exacerbated by global heating.

They are also expected to attack Tory plans to roll back the ban on fracking and Business Secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg’s call to extract “every drop” of oil from the North Sea.

The protest is part of a world-wide climate strike organised by Fridays for Future (FFF), which started in August 2018 when the then 15-year-old Greta Thunberg went on strike from school and sat outside the Swedish Parliament every for three weeks, demanding urgent action on the climate crisis. Her action spread with students and activists around the globe protesting outside their parliaments and city halls.

Three years ago, eight million people, including 40,000 in Scotland, took to the streets across the world on September 20, 2019, to demand climate justice.

Cora Gibson, a 16 year-old-activist and secondary pupil from Edinburgh, said: “There is a feeling that the energy from 2019 has died out among young people, but from the perspective of someone organising in high school, young people didn't stop caring.

"When I asked 5th and 6th year pupils in my school to come to the climate strike, when I explained the severity of the crisis and the need to act now, they listened, they were respectful and many approached me after to let me know they wanted to come along or know more about the crisis.

Climate strikers make their way from the Meadows to the Scottish Parliament on the global day of action on September 20, 2019. .

"Young people's energy has changed because the situation has changed but they are still paying attention, they are still supporting and joining our fight as they understand they're a part of it regardless of what they choose to do.”

Dylan Hamilton, 18, from Linlithgow, said: “This summer, when we had heatwaves across the UK, the whole world was talking about and covering what was happening here. When Pakistan was nearly underwater, it felt like it was only a blip on the news cycles.

"Inconveniences in the UK are huge news stories, while death and destruction in the global south are quickly overshadowed. This is our colonial legacy in action.”

FFF said the devastating impacts of global heating were being seen all over the world. “The climate crisis is going to create more pandemics, more heatwaves like we’ve seen this summer, more floods with death tolls in the thousands, making entire countries homeless.

"Though the pandemic has created obstacles for the school strike movement, the young people say they will continue to protest until they win.”