Turkish students to join global climate movement

By Zehra Aydin Turapoglu

ANKARA (AA) - Turkish students will join "Fridays For Future", an international climate movement, to protest against the lack of action on the climate crisis.

Young people from all over the world will take part in a massive coordinated strike from school on Friday, responding to a call from Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg.

Sixteen-year-old Thunberg founded "Fridays For Future" in August 2018 by sitting in front of the Swedish parliament every school day for three weeks.

The "Fridays For Future" seeks neither the redefinition of the climate crisis nor for a fresh solution to the issue, said Bilge Yerli, one of the founders of the movement’s Ankara branch, told Anadolu Agency.

Highlighting that climate change increasingly affected all people, Yerli underlined that the movement aims to apply solutions that have been around for years.

Yerli, 17, stressed that the movement needed support from all age groups as well as from people of different socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds.

"Our aim is to prevent the climate crisis from reaching a point of no return," said Yerli, urging society to act against climate change.

Some 32,000 students from 40 schools of the Turkish Education Association will support the movement between Sept. 20-27.

Young activists will raise public awareness to tackle the climate crisis by promoting the slogan "zero carbon or zero future".

* Writing by Gozde Bayar