Greta Thunberg and Teen Climate Activists Hold Vigil Outside of United Nations | NowThis

Our second demand is a just transition for 100% renewable energy. And our third demand is to hold some looters accountable and make polluters make reparations. As we continue on so that our September 20th interaction... Hi everyone, I'm Sophie Anderson, I'm the National Coordinator of XRU. I wanted to let everyone know that we stand united. Youth across the world and across the country are coming together for the strike on the 20th, and we're asking you and everyone here and everyone watching, no matter how old you are or where you come from, to join us, to strike for our future, to strike for a better world, and to strike for climate justice.

Hello, my name is Shiv. Once again, all the youth and everybody here, we all want to thank you for standing in solidarity with us. Thank you. And as she said, please go on strike with us. Go to strikewithus.org to find the closest strike near you. If you will be in New York City on September 20th, please come down to Foley Square at 12 o'clock. We will be marching from Foley Square down to Battery Park, and at Battery Park we will be holding a rally there as well. So please join us. We have emphasized this before: all people are welcome, all our adult allies, all youth, everybody is welcome. And thank you guys so much for coming. If you would like to follow the movement further and find more details about the strike online, you can go to strikewithus.org/nyc or on Instagram and social media find us at @FFF.NYC or XR Youth. Thank you everyone for being here.

We are. We are. We are. We are. We are. We are. We are. We are. We are in the soil behind the science behind the science behind the science behind the science behind the science behind the science behind the science.

We're gonna do one more song.

Greta, my name is Gail Davis. I'm with 20/20 or Bust and also Listen Gift. My question to you is: do you think it's each and every one of us taking individual actions that will reduce our carbon footprint by 20% by 2020?

It's so hard for you to be here today, our speaker. But yeah, it's important for you to be here today and participate. But they're coming to me.

Welcome to New York. You know that we really want social media. Every day I work for the End Chronicle. We're trying to cover what's happening in the world. You are... I want to ask you and your friend... And it's... Bang pardon. And we like to find out. I really encourage all of you to find out because he was a great peacekeeper. Nobel Prize for Peace. Ralph Bunche, it's really an honorable place and the right place for you and your friends to be here because I think climate and peace and... Not only humans. Very surprisingly, my question is: do you know who Ralph Bunche is? And I really encourage you and your friends to find more about him.

Okay everyone, our strike is actually scheduled from 11:00 to 2:00, so more youth are gonna start coming in. So I'm gonna ask everyone who's with cameras to step back when the youth start coming. And in the meantime, I would like to invite any of you standing up here to just say why they're striking and just... if they have a message for the people here. Just whatever your message is, just yeah.

Okay, so my name is Kara Kanji Hughes. I live in Pennsylvania. My friends here came here to strike because climate change is very important to me. And it's important to me because I will live until I'm 70 and then I might even make it into the next century. And I really, really like that? When I go to... when I'm older, the world will be ruined and hot and I won't like it. Places in the world underwater. And so I'd really like it if we actually acted on climate change so my world in the future will be a better place. Thank you.

Youth bikers, come to the front and start sitting in front of us because we need you guys to step back a little bit. It's getting a little claustrophobic.

Everyone, can we move it back? Take a step back.

There's gonna be more youth coming in, so I'm gonna ask all of you to step back gradually and just be nice. We are here because we care about our planet and that's a very... you know, sincere action. So we don't want this to get complicated or anything, and we want you to support us as well. So just everyone be nice. Thank you.

Another wants to tell their climate story.

All right, I got a story. This is what I have to say about the climate crisis. The fossil fuel industry continues to create a barrier between themselves and the implementation of renewable energy sources. Studies conducted showed that as of 2018, the Republican Party received $43.3 million from the fossil fuel industries, while Democrats accepted $6.3 million. But we hope that this number drastically decreases with the upcoming 2020 elections and campaigns beyond that. These numbers show the recipients directly benefit the donators. What made news yesterday was word of the Trump administration moving to erase Obama-era rules on methane emissions from oil and gas businesses. The administration claims that the federal government under Obama had overstepped its authority when it set limits on methane emissions. Methane gas stands as one of the most potent greenhouse gases. It is over 30 times more harmful to the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, increasing the amount of heat trapped in our atmosphere and contributing to global temperature increase. As the USA already stands as the world's largest oil producer, rolling back regulations on methane emissions is contributing to our manmade climate crisis. And it just goes to reinforce the sentiment that money for big corporations is once again more important than human lives and the overall health of our earth. But I add that increasing the share of renewable energy can increase global gross domestic product by 1.1 percent if implemented enough by 2030. Renewable energy can create more jobs and cause our nation's unemployment rate to decrease even further, even after taking into account the amount of jobs that are lost from the fossil fuel industries. In a nation so concerned about money, with advancing renewable energy technology becoming more affordable, there is no excuse for these technologies to not be implemented. Studies show that continued reliance on fossil fuels will cause economies to fluctuate and lose money in the wake of climate change. Renewables will generate money, increase quality of life, access to energy, and combat the climate crisis. It is time that the United States of America implement more regulations on who politicians can accept money from. Fossil fuel lobbying has got to go. Our lives and futures need to be put above the ability to make a quick dollar.

I'm so happy that Greta's here because this is surreal. This is something real. This is something that everyone has to know because I can't really believe that there are people that deny climate change. There are so many proofs of climate change. I think that the problem, the bigger problem, the biggest problem, is that governments try to make an immediate economic stability instead of a sustainable one. So why are they focusing on using fossil fuels than that someday? Not even their plan of making an immediate economy will fail because it will end. So it doesn't even make sense for economical power to invest in fossil fuels. We should all try... It's not only the individual, but everyone has to make a change. And that starts with voting. We... next... we meet... we vote next.

Renewable energy is an option, but it's not a desire.

Hello, I'm Haley Right Galarza. And this year, in my junior year of high school, my mom got cancer, and there was no history of cancer in my family before. And when the doctors did their research on why she contracted cancer, it was due to environmental pollution. This put my family through a lot of issues and a lot of problems. And I really feel that if the environment was better, this year would have been different.

Please, this young woman, thank you. You're my tears that not everybody can see because they're low to the ground. So please don't push because we don't want to step on people with sick.

Hello, we are all standing here to fight the climate crisis that has been impeding upon us. Every single person in front is striking. We have never lived in a world where companies or governments cared for us. For far too long, children have been used as political pawns to win elections. Companies have always put short-term economic gain over long-term sustainability, and we are the ones who are paying the consequences. The children here are skipping school to fight for this. None of us wanted to fight this fight, yet we are here sacrificing ourselves in front of the United Nations, in front of the world, to say that time is up to fight. Time is up. We need to start fighting the crisis now. And that's... thank you everybody who has come here today. This fight has not begun today and it will not end today.

If kids have to read information off the internet to get to know what's wrong in our world because of misinformation through the media and manipulation through companies, we have serious issues in the way the media communicates. If there are conflicting stories about whether climate change is real or not, this needs to be fixed. If we need kids to tell adults what's happening, something is wrong. Something very important is wrong. See, this is not easy. All it takes is local politics. Now you vote for someone to be in a position for a few years, and they want to do something for you so you vote for them. Climate change is global and it's very long-term. It's very difficult to solve that. And we need every single human being to support that because in a democracy we get what we vote for. And if you vote for Trump, we're going to get Trump.

A better world is possible. We are unstoppable. A better world is possible. We are unstoppable.

Support the ones we love. Support the people out there who we don't know personally, but who we know are suffering every day. Because if you are complacent, you are complicit. This is a fight that takes every single one of us. We are striking together. We will not stop striking together until this crisis is solved. We will be here every Friday. Our numbers will continue to grow. Because our bodies are rising. We're gonna strike because our people are dying. We're gonna strike for life and everything we love. We're gonna strike for you when you strike for us. The waters are rising. We're gonna strike because our people are dying. We're gonna strike for life and everything we love. We're gonna strike for you.

But this is not enough. We have to all come together. We have to come together at the local level, at the state level, at the federal level, and the international level. We have to come together as people and we have to come together with nature.

By... unprecedented rains that pushed my family from Mexico into the US. It has wrecked many of the seashores. And that's when I realized that the climate crisis follows you. There is no escaping it. It has been affecting everyone everywhere. And that is why everyone everywhere has to come together. I am also indigenous. I am from indigenous descent. And I want to tell you that indigenous people have been fighting to protect the world for thousands of years.

Sea levels are rising, and so are we.

As Greta has mentioned with her activism, climate change is displacing large communities from their homes. It's important to note that the climate crisis disproportionately affects poverty-stricken areas throughout the world. One of the growing topics talked about on news outlets and by candidates for the 2020 elections is immigration. What many people do not see outside of immigrants coming in caravans to the United States in search of a better life is that a large portion of these people are seeking better lives because they've been displaced from their homes and communities because of climate change. For example, migrants from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras leave their geographical region titled the Central American Dry Corridor as changes in precipitation events and climate lead to a greater loss of income. For the 30 percent of jobs in these countries that are in the agriculture industry, changing climate leads to a largely decreased crop yield, which in turn means less food for people to eat. And it impacts their economies and it impacts these people's source of income. They want to come to the United States just like our ancestors did in search of a better life and economic prosperity, and they should be able to do that. And climate change is taking many things away from these people who can't afford basic things like food and water. It's just making it worse. So we stand here again in solidarity with people who are being displaced from their communities because of climate change as well. Thank you.

The strike is growing.

We want to save this for the kids. Your future will look brighter with us.

Just watch us. Join us. Don't just watch us. Join us. Don't just watch us. Join us. Don't just watch us. Join us. Join us. Brothers, watch us. Join us. Don't just watch us. Join us. Don't just watch us. Join us.

A moment of silence right now for all of us, for all those being affected by this.

Although there are some that are privileged enough to not see it yet, climate change is already affecting millions of lives. There are people already growing sick. And this is just the beginning. This could lead to mass extinction. And although I see that there are so many people already fighting for this cause, I don't understand why there are world leaders that are not doing anything. I feel like we're almost speaking to them, like it's almost like a wall. And I just feel like at this point, when we come for that climate change summit during the UN General Assembly, we need action plans from member states on what they're going to be doing to tackle this issue.

I just want to let you know that there are youth among us who are going to be speaking at the UN.

All right guys, once we're gonna need to move back. We have people waiting to come in. So please, as much as you can... we still have you here, but we need to...

Strike for you. We'll use our voice. We're gonna show that people are dying.

Yeah, can we take that back?

If you are a member of the front blocking youth protestors, give them way. There are youth trying to get in. Please, let them through. I would like to use...

Could you stand up?

And you know that our school...

So this is the message to our direction: to those in power who are inside the United Nations climate...

Can everybody hear me? Good. Hi, I'll try that. I'll try harder. Okay, my name is Shiv. So I'm an 18 year old climate justice activist. We are here fighting, but we want to emphasize this isn't the first action we've taken and this will never be the last action that we're taking. If you're here in New York City, come strike with us at 12 o'clock at Foley Square on September 20th. And if you are not in New York City, check out Fridays for Future international strike.

Each department in the soil... love Marvel... no more oil. Deeper carbon in the soil. No more oil. I'll be performing in the soil in the summer.

It's a pretty simple song, she, and I'll sing it together. People are dying.

Together. Together. Together.