EXCLUSIVE

School students striking for climate change want adults to join them for a global event on March 15, and organisers say they already have support from a growing number of unions.

Despite the criticism strikers copped from Prime Minister Scott Morrison for skipping classes last year, school students around Australia are planning to walk out of school again for another rally ahead of the federal election.

This time they are also urging adults to back the strike and also walk out for the day in solidarity.

This year’s event is already being supported by a growing number of unions including the National Union of Workers, National Tertiary Education Union, United Firefighters Union, Hospo Voice, the Victorian Allied Health Professionals Association and the National Union of Students.

The National Union of Workers, one of the most powerful unions in the Labor Party and part of its right-wing faction that supports Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, said it was supporting the strike and the students standing together collectively for their future.

“They are inspiring leaders, and we support them in making our political leaders listen,” the union said.

More than 300 academics have also signed an open letter in solidarity with the student strikers supporting their stance against Adani’s Carmichael mine and a ban on gas mining.

The strikes created headlines last year when more than 15,000 students took the day off school to protest the lack of action on climate change, rallying in public spaces in Melbourne, Sydney and about 30 other cities and towns in Australia.

This year’s event, coming ahead of the federal election, is expected to be even bigger with organisers telling news.com.au students are extending an open invitation to everyone in the community to join them.

The school strike is gaining traction around the world. Australia’s March 15 event will also coincide with school protests in more than 40 other countries.

The School Strike 4 Climate on November 30 was originally inspired by 15-year-old Swedish student Greta Thunberg, who has been protesting for climate change action in Stockholm.

Australian students defied calls from the PM to stay in school after Mr Morrison said: “What we want is more learning in schools and less activism in schools.”

They also held another protest about a week later after Adani announced it would self-fund its Carmichael mine.

“We may still be in school, but we know the mining and burning of fossil fuels are driving dangerous climate impacts, including natural disasters, droughts, bushfires, and heatwaves,” 14-year-old Castlemaine student Milou Albrecht said.

She said politicians had lost touch with the Australian people.

“Extreme weather is all around us, and with 2019 an election year, it’s time our politicians showed leadership,” she said.

“We only have a decade to prevent the worst impacts of climate change, yet our politicians are wasting time and putting our future in danger.”

Fellow striker Harriet O’Shea Carre, 14, said Adani’s coal mine needed to be stopped and Australia should be put on a rapid path to 100 per cent renewable energy to ensure young people had a safe future.

“As school students, we’re sick of being ignored,” she said. “We’re sick of our futures being turned into political footballs.

“It’s time for our politicians to stop making decisions about us without us.”

She said students would not stop striking until they got the action they deserved.

According to a national ReachTel poll conducted after the strike, 62.7 per cent of 2345 people surveyed thought students had the right to demand action from the government on climate change.

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