From Sydney to London, thousands of school students walked out of classes in a global student strike to protest against government inaction on climate change. School strike for climate, also known in various regions as Fridays for Future, Youth for Climate or Youth Strike 4 Climate, is a growing international movement of pupils and students who are deciding not to attend classes and instead take part in demonstrations to demand action to prevent further global warming and climate change. Publicity and widespread organising began when Greta Thunberg staged an action outside the Swedish Riksdag (parliament), holding a sign that read "Skolstrejk för klimatet" or "School strike for the climate" during August 2018.
In 2015, an independent group of students invited students around the world to skip school on the first day of COP 21, the UNFCCC Climate Conference. On 30 November, the first day of Climate Conference in Paris, 'Climate Strike' was organized in over 100 countries and joined by over 50000 people. The movement focused on three demands, 100% clean energy, keeping fossil fuels in the ground, and helping climate refugees.
On 20 August 2018, Greta Thunberg, then in ninth grade, decided to not attend school until the 2018 Sweden general election on 9 September after heat waves and wildfires in Sweden. She asserts that this move was inspired by the teen activists at Parkland Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, who organised the March for our lives. Her demands were that the Swedish government reduce carbon emissions per the Paris Agreement, and she protested by sitting outside the Riksdag every day during school hours with the sign Skolstrejk för klimatet (school strike for climate). On 7 September, just before the general elections, she announced that she would continue to strike every Friday until Sweden aligns with the Paris Agreement. She coined the slogan FridaysForFuture, which gained worldwide attention. She inspired school students across the globe to take part in student strikes.
Inspired by Greta Thunberg, massive school strikes started in November 2018. In Australia, thousands of school students were inspired by Thunberg to strike on Fridays, ignoring Prime Minister Scott Morrison's call for "more learning in schools and less activism". Galvanized by the COP 24 Climate Change Conference in Katowice, Poland, in December student strikes continued at least in 270 cities in countries including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands, Germany, Finland, Denmark, Japan, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. In 2019, strikes were organised again in the countries listed above and were organised for the first time in other countries, notably: Colombia, New Zealand and Uganda.
The strikes have also been criticised as truancy. Prime Minister Theresa May of the United Kingdom criticised the strikes as wasting lesson and teaching time. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison called for "more learning and less activism" following the strikes. Australia's Education Minister Dan Tehan suggested that if school students feel strongly about a cause, then they should protest in their own time in the evenings or on weekends. In New-Zealand, there was a mixed response from politicians, community leaders, and schools. Students were threatened to be marked as truant by some principals for attending the strike without their parents' or schools' permission. Judith Collins, and several other Members of Parliament were dismissive of the impact of the strike. However, the Climate Change Minister James Shaw was supportive of the strike, and defended the strike on a school day, saying: "When you're fighting for your future, and you are trying to get the attention of those whom you feel have let you down, following the rules and marching on the weekend isn't going to cut it."
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