Victoria’s young climate strikers will be calling for reduced fossil fuel emissions and the implementation of climate-change solutions as part of a climate-strike rally to be held Friday.
The strikers will meet at Centennial Square before marching to the B.C. Ministry of Energy to call for the end of fossil-fuel extraction in B.C. They want the province to instead invest in renewable energy.
“As CO2 emissions continue to rise and governments fail to act, students and their allies around the world are calling on everyone to walk out of their homes, schools and workplaces and join them in the streets to demand action to end fossil fuels and start building a livable, sustainable future,” organizers Emma-Jane Burian and Patrick Schreck said in a statement.
Organizers are also calling on municipal leaders in the capital region to implement initiatives — such as an expanded free transit system using electric buses — that aim to limit climate change.
“We’re getting more specific and more local in our demands,” said Burian, who helped organize three previous climate-strike events in Victoria.
On Sept. 27, thousands gathered outside the B.C. legislature as part of a worldwide climate strike. Rallies were also held in Nanaimo, Qualicum Beach, Courtenay, Campbell River, Port Alberni, Ucluelet and Tofino, and on North Pender, Mayne, Gabriola and Denman islands.
The rallies capped a week of climate events, starting with an emergency climate session at the United Nations, where teen activist Greta Thunberg lashed out at world leaders for not taking the climate crisis seriously enough.
