50 Powerful Photos From The Global Climate Protests To Inspire You To Take Urgent Action

With the Covid-19 pandemic and a global reckoning on systemic racial injustice, a lot has changed since an estimated four million young people – led by Greta Thunberg’s Fridays For Future movement – took to the streets in September 2019, in what was believed to be the world’s largest ever climate protest.

When it comes to action on the climate crisis, though, progress has been slow. Despite major lockdowns around the world this year, global carbon emissions are expected to only be down four to seven per cent compared to last year – below the reductions needed to keep global warming to a limit of 1.5C, as set out by the Paris Agreement. “If you look at it from a certain point of view, we have achieved nothing,” Thunberg said frankly, during the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Madrid, in December 2019. 

That’s why thousands of young people from around the world have been protesting again – both physically and digitally – as part of a Global Day of Climate Action on 25 September. While Covid-19 restrictions mean in-person protests were on a much smaller scale than last year, the message remains clear: we need urgent action on the climate crisis right now. 

“We’re fighting for our present, not just our future,” says Mitzi Jonelle Tan, 22, lead convener of the Youth Advocates for Climate Action Philippines (YACAP). “We’re already experiencing the [effects of] the climate crisis today.” Nakabuye Hilda Flavia, 23, founder of Fridays For Future Uganda adds: “We’re striking in countries across the world – we have to get together as a global community so that we can combat the effects of climate change.” 

A particular focus for this year’s strikes is climate justice and MAPA – a term used by the activists to describe the “most affected people and areas” around the world. In New York, a March Against Environmental Racism was organised by BIPOC activists in order to highlight the ways in which people of colour are disproportionately affected by the climate crisis. “The pollution of our environment is a direct result of white supremacy – we must tackle both simultaneously,” says Ayisha Siddiqa, 21, New York-based activist and co-founder of Polluters Out. 

Here, Vogue’s photographers on the ground capture the powerful global climate protests that are inspiring urgent action, giving us all hope for the future.