Students plan third school strike for climate in September

Wellington High School student Molly Doyle (left), speaking at the last student strike for climate on May 24, wants young people to make submissions on the Zero Carbon Bill. Photo / Supplied

School students plan to walk out of classes again in September in another global strike pushing for tougher action to stop climate change.

School Strike 4 Climate NZ, which has already organised strikes on March 15 and May 24, now plans a week of local actions from September 20 culminating in a national walkout on September 27.

The actions will coincide with a Climate Action Summit called by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres in New York on September 23.

The NZ students are also running "submission parties" over the next few weeks to help young people to write submissions on Climate Change Minister James Shaw's Zero Carbon Bill before submissions close on July 16.

Molly Doyle, a 17-year-old student who has just left Wellington High School to go to university fulltime, said students supported the bill's aim to reduce net carbon emissions to zero by 2050 but wanted the targets made legally enforceable.

"We think implementation needs to be real, that ministries should have to take the bill into account when they make decisions," she said.

"Our submissions will focus on making the bill legally binding and having future governments agree on it as well."

Thousands of students marched in the May 24 climate strike in Auckland (above) and other centres. Photo / Annabel Reid

Thousands of students took part in the last strike on May 24 around the country.

This time the movement plans "action for the climate through tree plantings, online challenges and events" in the week leading up to the national strike on September 27.

"Climate change puts everything we love at risk. We do still have time to turn this around, we can't let this moment slip away," the group said.

As well as a legally enforceable Zero Carbon Act, they are demanding the declaration of a climate emergency, an immediate ban on fossil fuel extraction and exploration, and state investment in renewable energy and retraining.

Guterres has asked world leaders to come to the New York summit in September "with concrete, realistic plans to enhance their nationally determined contributions by 2020, in line with reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 45 per cent over the next decade, and to net zero emissions by 2050".

Antonio Guterres, pictured (left) with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in Auckland, urged young people to "mobilise your societies" for tougher action on climate change. Photo / Peter Meecham

He called in Auckland last month for the NZ Government to adopt a pollution tax, and praised the leadership of young people on the issue.

"We need the leadership of the youth … because those who have to take responsibility in the world, especially Governments, are not showing enough political will," he said.

When asked by a student what young people needed to do to tackle the climate change problem before it was too late, Guterres said he was "waiting for you to be as noisy as possible".

He encouraged young people to "mobilise your societies, your parents, families and friends and to put your Governments under pressure – that's what I'm asking you now."