Students from local schools and eco-awareness groups marched on Taipei’s Ketagalan Boulevard to highlight the importance of climate awareness Sunday.
The climate strike was led by the Taiwan Youth Climate Coalition founded by Taiwan-based American schools in Taipei and New Taipei.
The coalition named the march “Fridays for Future” in response to the eponymous call initiated by young Swedish activist Greta Thunberg in 2018.
Thunberg’s movement called for youth all over the world to demand that their governments take concrete action to protect the environment.
The Sunday march was attended by nearly 100 students belonging to the coalition and environment-awareness groups such as National Chengchi University’s Green24 Club and Greenpeace.
The young demonstrators called for greater recognition of the importance of climate awareness and asked more people to voice their support for measures to prevent climate change.
Student Chen Wei-yu (陳威宇) from New Taipei’s Asia American International Academy took to the stage at the event to deliver a public statement.
He first detailed climate change phenomenon observed this year, such as the heatwave in northern India in March, floods in South Africa, Brazil, Bangladesh, northeast India and Sydney, Australia in April, May, June and July, respectively.
“Various climate change phenomenon have greatly affected our lives,” Chen said. “In the past four years, climate change movements were initiated by youths in cities big and small all over the world. This year is time that we bring the action to Taiwan.”
Chen noted that global warming is now part of daily life, saying that when he was younger it was necessary to wear multiple layers of clothing in winter, but now people feel hot during the winter months.
Young people must take responsibility and work to rectify the current situation or their generation will be just another in a long line of groups who have embraced inaction and are deservedly condemned by history, Chen said.

Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel