Greta Thunberg will lead a youth strike in 150 countries on Friday

This story is part of Cover the climate now, a global collaboration of more than 250 media to strengthen coverage of climate history.

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Youth from around the world are conducting a massive coordinated school strike on Friday, September 20th to protest the inaction of government and business in the face of climate change. This will probably be one of the biggest environmental events in history.

The global climate strike comes just before countries meet at the September 23 climate action summit at the United Nations. This is a meeting in anticipation of the UN General Assembly, where countries are expected to boost their greenhouse gas reduction ambitions in the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

"If you can not participate in the strike, then of course you do not have to," said a 16-year-old Swedish climate activist. Greta ThunbergThe school's original striker who began last year demanding more action from his government against climate change with weekly protests, told Teen Vogue. "But I think there's a day when you should join, it's the day."

Thunberg has become a figurehead and an increasingly influential voice in the fight against the climate of anxiety and youth activism. Since she no longer had flights due to the high carbon emissions of aviation, she was offered the opportunity to travel to the United States aboard a zero-emission sailboat. After arriving on August 28, she is now in Washington, DC, speaking in front of Congress and meeting US lawmakers and activists before heading to New York for the strike and summit.

It's a great moment for Thunberg and the legions of activists and young and adult leaders she's inspired since she started skipping classes on Friday to protest in front of Parliament Sweden in August 2018. Thousands of young members of the movement, called Fridays for Future, are now on strike. every Friday to demand more aggressive action from their governments and the international community. The last coordinated large-scale climate strike on May 24th brought together participants from 130 countries.

The strike in New York is expected to attract thousands of people. Parallel strikes in Washington, Boston, Seattle, Minneapolis, Miami, Los Angeles and Denver could also be. But it's really a global strike and it will be the biggest of the movement to date, with 2,500 events scheduled in 150 countries. (The Global Climate Strike website offers a searchable map of all events.) Millions of people can participate.

Thunberg will lead a protest at Foley Square starting at noon Friday in New York, followed by a rally and a march towards Battery Park. New York public schools even apologized for joining the strike.

And it's not just young people who participate. In Sweden, a group of older people, Greta's Gamblingar (Greta's Oldies), participates. Indigenous activists, labor groups, religious leaders, humanitarian groups and environmental organizations such as Greenpeace and 350.org will also be present. Outdoor equipment company Patagonia has announced that it will close its stores Friday in solidarity with the strike. Just like the snowboard brand Burton. More than 1,000 Amazon employees have pledged to participate in the strike.

With the Monday's UN summit, this strike aims to get countries to engage in harsher climate targets and faster transitions to renewable energies. Under the Paris agreement, countries have agreed to work to limit global warming in this century to less than 2 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels, but they have set their own goals. At the time, targets were not in line with the target, but it was hoped that countries would gradually strengthen their ambitions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions over time. The next UN summit should allow countries to present their new, more ambitious goals.

"I look forward to welcoming young leaders like Greta Thunberg and many others," said UN Secretary-General António Guterres at a press conference the month latest. "I say to the leaders, do not come to the top with nice speeches. Come with concrete plans, clear steps to improve nationally determined contributions by 2020 and strategies for carbon neutrality by 2050. "

However, greenhouse gas emissions are increasing worldwide and the largest historical carbon dioxide emitter, the United States, is trying to break the Paris deal.

Young people inherit a world racing towards a climate catastrophe. They are not happy with that.

One of the most powerful themes of the strike movement is that the youngest have the biggest stakes in a world transformed by climate change. And they have the right to feel aggrieved by the careless approach governments and institutions have taken to the problem.

Recently, more and more young activists have radically transformed the discussion on climate change.

In the United States, the young activists of the Sunrise Movement have imposed a national debate on climate change and global frameworks like the Green New Deal. Almost every major Democratic candidate in the White House has now published their own plan to fight climate change.

Television channels, including CNN and MSNBC, responded by devoting an unprecedented amount of airtime to discussing the political implications of climate change with presidential candidates.

And in the courts, a major climate change lawsuit is ongoing with more than a dozen young plaintiffs suing the US government for taking advantage of industries that emit greenhouse gases. In doing so, the government has deprived young people of their right to a climate of security. The suit, Juliana c. US, has already attracted the attention of the US Supreme Court. Thunberg plans to join Juliana plaintiffs and Democratic lawmakers for a speech on the Supreme Court marches this week.

School strikers and Juliana complainants have also reformulated the debate on climate change. It is as much a question of justice as of protection of the climate.

The people who have contributed the least to this problem are those who suffer the most, such as the inhabitants of the small, very low-carbon island countries that are now threatened by rising sea levels and extreme weather conditions. And the worst consequences of global warming will fall on future generations. Strikers demand that the political response to climate change focuses on the issue of justice.

"We must act now to stop burning fossil fuels and to ensure a rapid energy revolution based on equity, reparations and climate justice," according to the claims of the climate strike website.

Strikes are therefore a show of force on the part of those who have the most to lose from climate change. It remains to be seen whether this will encourage countries to do more to limit global warming.