UK Student Climate Network

UK Student Climate Network

UK Student Climate Network (UKSCN) is a student-led climate justice organisation operating in England and Wales founded by Anna Taylor, then aged 17, on 1 December 2018, along with Ivi Hohmann and Daniela Torres Perez.

UKSCN is a group of mainly under 18s who have been calling for strikes from school since February 2019, as part of the Youth Strike 4 Climate movement, with the ambition of getting the Government of the United Kingdom and the Welsh Government to take action on the climate crisis by fulfilling their demands. The strikes have seen thousands of students across England and Wales, with Scottish Youth Climate Strike, and Youth Climate Association Northern Ireland organising youth climate strikes in Scotland, and Northern Ireland respectively, leave or not go to school on Fridays.

Demands

UKSCN has 4 demands:

• DEMAND 1-SAVE THE FUTURE The Government is to declare a climate emergency and implement a Green New Deal to achieve Climate Justice.

• DEMAND 2-TEACH THE FUTURE The education system must be repurposed and reformed around the climate emergency to better teach young people about its urgency, severity, scientific basis and methods of mitigation. This demand has now evolved into the Teach the Future England campaign which is supported by the School Group Developmental working group as well as SOS-UK and various partner organisations.

• DEMAND 3-TELL THE FUTURE The Government communicate the severity of the ecological crisis and the necessity to act now to the general public.

• DEMAND 4-EMPOWER THE FUTURE Young people must be included in policy making, and no one should be excluded from participation in our democracy on the basis of age, citizenship, permanent address, incarceration or anything else. For as long as UK democracy is conducted through a representative system, everyone living in the UK over the age of 16 must have the right to vote in elections, conducted via proportional representation, so that everyone's vote is reflected in our government and is worth the same.

Strikes

UKSCN's first strike was held on 15 February 2019, under the name #YouthStrike4Climate. It saw 15,000 English and Welsh school students strike from schools in protest, with strikes in Scotland and Northern Ireland organised by different organisations.

This was followed by a second strike on 15 March 2019 which was coordinated with global Youth Strike 4 Climate protests that were held across the world, which saw 1.6 million students go on strike. The organisation's demonstrations have grown in popularity, with an estimated total of 20,000 people in attendance at the demonstration held outside Parliament Square in London on 15 March 2019 and 50,000 across England and Wales. The strikes are in solidarity with other Youth Strike 4 Climate protests taking place across the world.

Strikes have since taken place on:

• 12 April 2019
• 24 May 2019
• 21 June 2019
• 19 July 2019
• 20 September 2019 which was a general strike of adults and students; this was the largest climate mobilisation in UK history with an estimated 100,000 people in London alone and an estimated 300,000 people at strikes across the UK.
• 29 November 2019
• 17 January 2020
• 14 February 2020

The only nationally coordinated strikes of 2020 were on 17 January and 14 February. Local group Bristol Youth Strike 4 Climate organised and held a strike on 27 February 2020 that was attended by over 30,000 people along with Greta Thunberg.

Coronavirus update

The outbreak of COVID-19 across the world is worth panicking about. We must treat this as the crisis that it is, but we also recognise that, like the climate crisis, it is impacting the vulnerable the most. We understand that it’s not about bargaining which crisis is most important; we have many crises, and these are just two of them.

In line with new government regulations, UKSCN advocates for a cancellation of all climate strikes while this pandemic lasts. It is a risk to your health and those around you to partake in mass gathering such as these, and would violate the guidelines to only leave your house for specific essential purposes.

 

Employee on Wikispooks

Employee	Job	Appointed
Scarlett Westbrook	Volunteer Campaigner and Spokesperson	February 2019

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References

This page imported content from Wikipedia on 18 January 2021.
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