Protest chants rang through the streets of Dunedin’s city centre today, as students joined thousands of others nationwide in a climate march for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic hit.
The year 13 Kavanagh College pupil was at the head of a march of about 500 pupils and climate activists that paraded with a police escort from the University of Otago Dental School to the Octagon.
The protesters chanted: ‘‘No coal, no oil, keep our fossils in the soil’’ and held signs saying: ‘‘I’m with Greta’’, ‘‘Eat the rich’’, and ‘‘Stop buying palm’’.
Students also took their demands to Parliament in Wellington and clashed with Christchurch's mayor Lianne Dalziel.
A mix of students and older protesters shouted her down after hearing her response to their demands.
They marched from Cathedral Square to the Civic building with local demands including investment into green and free public transport, greater emphasis on climate education, and to stop development of the Tarras airport in Central Otago.
Dalziel told the crowd the demands are important, and change "requires work from everyone". As she said change was needed, there were calls of "what are you going to do" from the crowd.
The mayor said young people should make submissions to Environment Canterbury (the regional council)'s long term plan, and the crowd began shouting her down.
Dalziel said she would meet with protest leaders over their demands, but would not go into details with the crowd. One organiser made an emotional and hoarse plea for the mayor to make the right choice.
In Auckland, more than 1000 students marched up Queen Street chanting: "Hey, hey. Ho, ho. Climate change has got to go."
Most of the crowd were students and many held placards demanding a change in attitudes to stop global warming.
Marist College Year 13 student Maddie Atkinson says she wants to show her school how important it is to use her voice.
"This is a big issue, like, climate change you know it's taking over our world and even though in New Zealand we aren't really feeling a lot of the impact, like the brunt of what it's doing to our world, there are so many people in lower economically developed countries that aren't able to make change.
"But with us doing something, with us changing, you know, we can speak up for them."
In Wellington, about 4000 students listened to speakers in an open mic session outside Parliament.
Climate Change Minster James Shaw met with the students, who marched from Civic Square to the steps of Parliament, and received a list of demands calling for government action on climate change.
They urged Shaw to make sure the transition to a zero carbon economy was done in a just and equitable way.
- reporting by Hamish MacLean of the Otago Daily Times and RNZ
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Comments
"The rational part of a teen’s brain isn’t fully developed and won’t be until age 25 or so.
In fact, recent research has found that adult and teen brains work differently. Adults think with the prefrontal cortex, the brain’s rational part. This is the part of the brain that responds to situations with good judgment and an awareness of long-term consequences. Teens process information with the amygdala. This is the emotional part........2021 University of Rochester Medical Center study.
That would explain the anger, angst and emotional outbursts of these CHILDREN.
Please, let them be kids until they are mature enough to make rational decisions!
Hahahahaha
There is something terribly wrong with our education system, as it is now producing activists that are turning against their own country in the name of something we can never solve as a country.
NZ has one coal fired power plant, the highest emitters of CO2, yet other countries are planning on building many new ones for decades to come.
Our government and industry has plans to remove coal for our energy supplies as soon as it is practicable.
If our education system and media was doing it's job correctly these students would be protesting outside the Chinese embassy as China has just approved the building of hundreds of new additional coal fired power stations.
All that cheap product they buy, has been produced with the help of coal.
If these students are serious about cutting CO2 emissions, then the fastest course of action they could take is to buy product that has been produced ethically by their own standards.
As for "eat the rich", NZ's living standard is in the top 1% on a global ranking, so for those that hold such views, maybe they could start with the placard holder.
https://e360.yale.edu/features/despite-pledges-to-cut-emissions-china-go...