With preliminary results coming in on Sunday night from the European Elections, one big development has been an apparent 'green wave' sweeping across Europe.

Most notably in France, Germany and Ireland, green parties saw improved results compared to the 2014 elections.

With official results still to come, the Greens/EFA grouping in the European Parliament are projected to take 71 seats, which would be their best ever total. In 2014, they won 50 seats.

Climate protests have taken place in the weeks leading up to the election, with school children across Europe staging mass school walk-outs over the issue.

This momentum was set in motion by the meteoric rise in the media of 16-year-old Swedish schoolgirl Greta Thunberg, who started the school strikes.

She has since gone on to speak at the the COP24 United Nations climate change summit in December 2018, as well as addressing the European Parliament itself in April this year.

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