Government leaders around the world will be hard-pressed to tune out the unprecedented youth-led climate strikes taking place Friday to demand nations take more aggressive action in curbing carbon emissions.More than a million protesters took to the streets in more than 150 countries as young people urged politicians to take climate change seriously and implement policies aimed at keeping global warming to a maximum of 1.5 degrees Celsius.The flagship event is taking place in New York City, where 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg is leading thousands of young people in a demonstration and march three days before world leaders gather there to attend the United Nations Climate Action Summit on Monday. Thunberg started the “Fridays for Future” movement last August when she began to skip school to protest inaction on climate change in front of the Swedish parliament.Other protests took place in such cities as Canberra, London, Paris, Berlin, Johannesburg, Nairobi and Kabul. “It’s such a victory,” Thunberg told The Associated Press in an interview in New York. “I would never have predicted or believed that this was going to happen, and so fast — and only in 15 months.”In some regions, children were officially given the day off school to attend the strikes; the New York City public school board gave permission to 1.1 million public school students to skip school to join that city’s protest, one of more than 800 events happening in the U.S. alone in all 50 states.Things were quieter Friday in Canada, which will see most of its major climate strikes take place on Sept. 27 in cities such as Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal, where Thunberg will be in attendance. More than 100 events are planned across Canada that day. There were some modest protests in some parts of the country, however, including in Calgary, where hundreds of activitists gathered in front of city hall. In Edmonton, protesters staged a ...
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