Metro Vancouver students cut class to demand action on climate change
Local students join those in eight other Canadian cities in staging school strike and rally at city hall
Students from across Metro Vancouver walked out of school today to demand action on climate change, joining school strikes staged in eight other Canadian cities.
About 50 students joined the Vancouver Teen Climate Strike rally at city hall before marching to the West Broadway office of George Heyman, the B.C. minister of environment and climate change strategy.
Listen to students discuss climate change
Organizer Rebecca Hamilton said she was motivated to take action watching other student strikes around the world and especially Swedish teen Greta Thunberg who has been missing classes every Friday to sit outside her country's Parliament to protest its inaction on climate change.
"Climate change is a crisis and everyday I ask myself how can I just be going about my everyday life when this crisis is coming that's going to impact my future and generations to follow," said the grade 11 Lord Byng student.
Hamilton says although the newly introduced Clean B.C. plan includes many positive steps, the emission reduction targets announced don't go far enough.
"The targets that [Clean B.C.] is based on aren't science based and won't keep us below 1.5 degree C temperature rise," she said. "And so we want to ask George Heyman about these issues because we know that he really believes in strong climate action."
Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart joined the rally telling the students he supports their fight.
"It's your generation that's going to inherit all the problems that we're not addressing now," said Stewart. "We all have to work together to take on the biggest global challenge that we're facing."