Protesters in Australia, Japan and India yesterday launched a fresh round of global demonstrations against climate change, heeding the call to action from 16-year-old climate change campaigner Greta Thunberg.
Hundreds of demonstrators in Sydney — brandishing placards that read: “You’re burning our future” and chanting: “We will rise” — gathered outside the offices of the Liberal Party as Sydney was again enveloped in toxic smoke from hundreds of bushfires that have devastated the country’s southeast in recent weeks.
“My home town was on the frontlines,” said student Sam Galvin, who was protesting in Melbourne. “That kind of shocked me into realizing that this is something that is happening and it’s time I do something about it.”
Photo: AFP
The target of the protesters’ ire was Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who has angrily denied any link between the fires and climate change, while defending his support for fossil fuels.
“Our government’s inaction on the climate crisis has supercharged bushfires,” school strike leader Shiann Broderick said. “People are hurting. Communities like ours are being devastated. Summer hasn’t even begun.”
Australia, with a population of 25 million, has low carbon emissions compared with the planet’s biggest polluters, but is one of the world’s leading coal exporters.
Protests also took place in Tokyo, where hundreds marched through the teeming Shinjuku District to raise awareness of the issue.
“I feel a sense of crisis because almost no one in Japan is interested” in climate change, 19-year-old student Mio Ishida said. “I was really inspired by Greta’s actions. I thought that if I didn’t act now, it would be too late. I wanted to do something I could do.”
In New Delhi, about 50 school and university students staged a march to the Indian Ministry of Environment in the world’s most polluted capital, carrying placards and chanting slogans that urged the government to declare a climate emergency.
“This is about doing something that you believe in,” 23-year-old Saumya Chowdhury said. “We want the government to acknowledge this and have a conversation on this issue with people.”
India is one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gases and has 14 of the 15 most polluted cities in the world, according to a UN study.
Last month, millions of people took to the streets in nearly every major global city for a series of “climate strikes.”
The latest demonstrations come as representatives of 200 nations prepare to gather next week in Madrid for a 12-day UN Climate Change Summit.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
EYE ON STRAIT: The US spending bill ‘doubles security cooperation funding for Taiwan,’ while also seeking to counter the influence of China US President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law a US$1.2 trillion spending package that includes US$300 million in foreign military financing to Taiwan, as well as funding for Taipei-Washington cooperative projects. The US Congress early on Saturday overwhelmingly passed the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act 2024 to avoid a partial shutdown and fund the government through September for a fiscal year that began six months ago. Under the package, the Defense Appropriations Act would provide a US$27 billion increase from the previous fiscal year to fund “critical national defense efforts, including countering the PRC [People’s Republic of China],” according to a summary
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)