Cardiff’s youth marched against climate change and asked the government to act on it causes
Almost 250 students in Cardiff took to the streets to ask the Welsh government to do more on climate change.
The two mile march started at City Hall on the Valentine’s day morning and the protesters arrived at the Senedd. The whole theme of the strike was showing love for the planet.
Pupils who were involved in the protest were under 18, but parents of younger children came along to support their children. Students were chanting and showing homemade signs with love themed messages.
A young climate activist Ryan Belhadj said, “This is our second year. Last year was the first Cardiff youth strike for climate, this year our demands remain the same. None of our four demands – a green new deal, education reform, proper communication, and votes at 16 – have been met by the British Government.”
Ryan Belhadj further said, “Government should adopt a new route to tackle climate change. Nothing has been done in the time between when we started striking and now. The fact that we are still striking one year on is shameful. Once again, we have had to take the strikes and sacrifice our education to try to get the government to act.”
In 2018, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a report saying the world had 12 years to reverse the damage made by global warming.
After the report was released by IPCC, Cardiff Council declared a climate emergency. They also announced they would join other councils across the UK to implement the new Low Carbon Delivery Plan to develop and implement best practice methods that can deliver carbon reductions and help limit global warming.
The young protesters wrote individual messages and posted them to the government. Few letters had a message thanking the Welsh Government for declaring a climate emergency, but telling them to get a move on with real actions.
