School Strike 4 Climate sets date for another nationwide climate strike
Watch: Auckland organisers Gwyneth Parallag and Sarah Paton-Beverley speak to The AM Show. Credits: Image - Getty; Video - The AM Show Children are once again going on strike over climate change. School Strike 4 Climate New Zealand announced on Wednesday more protests will be held across the country on May 24, which is the date of the next global school strike. The protests are aimed at the Zero Carbon Bill, which organisers criticised as being unenforceable and not ambitious enough. Strikers are calling for the Bill to include a target of a 47 percent reduction of methane by 2050, a mechanism to make targets legally enforceable and a requirement for the Government to create a plan for implementation. "We're striking again on May 24th as we still don't feel that our planet and our future is secure," co-convenor Tony Huang said. "Until the youth of Aotearoa can feel that our futures will be safe from the devastating effects of climate change we will continue to strike." Organisers have also called for the Government to declare a climate emergency, make a plan to get to carbon zero by 2040 and end all new exploration and extraction of fossil fuels. Protests are planned from Kerikeri down to Dunedin, with more protests to be announced in the coming weeks. The last school strike took place on March 15 and was criticised by some politicians as simply an excuse to skip school. But organisers and students who took part denied the claims of truancy. "There will be a minority, and that is a small minority, of kids that will be wagging and just taking the day off... but the majority of people are going to educate themselves," Auckland organiser Sarah Paton-Beverley told The AM Show on March 15. "They're going because this is a chance for students to be heard, we don't have the power to vote, most of us are under 18." Newshub.