In September 2019, thousands of schoolchildren across the world, including many in Pakistan, walked out of classes in a day of protest as part of a planned Global Climate Strike ahead of a United Nations climate summit, demanding action to tackle climate change.

In Pakistan, marches took place in 26 cities and rural areas.

The marches were coordinated by 200+ citizens via a handful of WhatsApp groups consisting of students, doctors, lawyers, software engineers, architects, and development professionals, among many others. They continue to work together in a coalition called ClimateActionPk, and their demand is: “Climate Action Now!”

What happened during the 2019 Global Climate Strike in Pakistan?

Pakistan air quality activists teamed up with the young people leading the Global Climate Strike after originally planning a march to protest the country’s smog. After hearing about the Strike, they decided it would be more effective to join forces.

Abid Omar, the found of the Pakistan Air Quality Initiative who helped coordinate ClimateActionPk events in Karachi, said: “This is the first time Pakistan as a nation, young and old, schoolchildren and adults – not just professionals working in the NGO, the environment and the development sectors – have come together to demand climate action now.”

What coordinators are particularly excited about is that members of marginalized communities in cities and some rural areas joining the marches, particularly communities who stand to be affected the most by climate change.

Amir Zafar Khan, a lawyer who helped coordinate ClimateActionPk in Lahore, told IQAir AirVisual: “What’s truly unique that we are trying to do with this protest is bringing in people from rural areas, who have not been part of a march by the urban elite.”

ClimateActionPk called on the government to take the following steps:

1. Declare a climate emergency;
2. Demand climate justice though a global coalition;
3. Adopt a low-carbon economy; and
4. Ensure grassroots-level climate adaptation efforts.

ClimateActionPk’s other demands included the inclusion of women and marginalized communities in climate change and environmental decision-making and policy-making, and that Pakistan should build a coalition of developing countries with the objective of holding developed countries accountable for historical greenhouse emissions.

Why is climate change a big deal in Pakistan?

The potential challenges facing Pakistan from climate change include the changing of monsoon patterns, floods, droughts, and receding Himalayan glaciers affecting the Indus River, which is a key water source for Pakistan.¹

Global Climate Strike events occurred in more than 100 countries. Schoolchildren and university students joined forces with union members, company workers, and other adults hoping to draw world attention in the days leading up to the U.N. climate summit in New York.²

The Global Climate Strike, as well as ongoing climate change awareness movements, have been inspired by Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg.³ Her climate protests outside the Swedish parliament beginning in 2018 first sparked the #FridaysForFuture movement, in which students and others strike on Fridays to protest a lack of action to deal with climate change.

September 2019’s Global Climate Strike was followed by another day of action a week later. September’s events marked the second global climate strike; in March 2019, an estimated 1.5 million people took part. test