Millions of people around the world held a global climate strike on Friday, inspired by activist Greta Thunberg.Protesters across continents waved placards and chanted slogans in what could be the biggest ever demonstration over global warming caused by humans."Our house is on fire", Ms Thunberg said at a rally. "We will not just stand aside and watch."The day began in the Pacific and Asia and culminated in a massive demonstration in New York.It comes ahead of a UN summit next week at the organisation's headquarters in Manhattan. Activists are demanding greater efforts be made at the meeting to tackle climate change.
Ms Thunberg first started skipping school to protest against inaction on climate change in 2018.Her actions have inspired schoolchildren and adults around the world to take up the fight.What happened on Friday?Pacific island nations like Kiribati, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu - all threatened by rising sea levels - kicked off the strike. Posts online showed citizens chanting: "We are not sinking, we are fighting."“We are not sinking, we are fighting” #ClimateStrike Kiribati #MatagiMālohi #PacificClimateWarriorsIn Australia, 350,000 people are thought to have joined protests across the country, with some local authorities encouraging school children and workers to take part.The country is already suffering from soaring temperatures, and warming seas have contributed to the death of half the Great Barrier Reef off Australia's north-east coast.
From there, demonstrations spread to cities in Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas.Students in Ghana marched in the capital Accra, saying climate change has sped up coastal erosion which is affecting people on the country's coast. About 44% of the population of Ghana have not heard of climate change, one study by Afrobarometer suggests.People in Thailand and India staged "die-ins", falling to the ground and feigning death to demand greater government action.Climate strike march to Ministry of Environment in Bangkok today. Young, passionate, more foreigners than Thais. Kudos to the school children who took part. It’s their future.
As protests took place in 500 towns and cities across Germany, the country's coalition government announced a €54bn (£48bn; $60bn) package aimed at cutting greenhouse gases.And in the UK, hundreds of thousands are believed to have taken part in cities across all four countries.Further climate strikes are expected next week during the UN summit.What did Greta Thunberg say?The teenage activist was greeted like a rockstar at the rally on Friday, with chants of "Greta! Greta!" resounding around New York's Battery Park."This is the biggest climate strike ever in history, and we all should be so proud of ourselves because we have done this together," the teenager told demonstrators.Ms Thunberg said about four million people took part in the strike around the world, "and we're still counting.""This is an emergency. Our house is on fire. And it's not just the young people's house, we all live here - it affects all of us," she told the crowd.
The teenager said about 4 million people are thought to have taken part in the march, "and we're still counting"Wherever she has gone in the world, she said, "the empty promises are the same, the lies are the same and the inaction is the same".The eyes of the world will be on leaders at the UN next week, and "they have a chance to take leadership to prove they actually hear us"."This is what people power looks like," she said, before ending the speech with a word for those "who feel threatened by us"."This is only the beginning," she said. "Change is coming whether they like it or not."
Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg first staged a "School Strike for Climate" outside her national parliament in August last year.Her actions have inspired other schoolchildren and adults around the world, and she has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.We can't all be Greta, but your actions have a ripple effectThe 16-year-old travelled to the US by boat in August, refusing to fly or take a cruise ship due to the emissions those modes of transport cause.Ahead of her address to the UN next week, Ms Thunberg told US politicians they must do more to combat climate change."Don't invite us here to just tell us how inspiring we are without actually doing anything about it," she said.
The day millions marched
Dozens of people demonstrate on the occasion of the global climate strike, in Sao Paulo
EPACopyright: EPA
Dozens of people demonstrate on the occasion of the global climate strike, in Sao PauloImage caption: Dozens of people demonstrate on the occasion of the global climate strike, in Sao Paulo
That wraps up our coverage of the wave of climate protests that began in Australia this morning before spreading across nearly every corner of the globe to the US West Coast.Millions of young people marched on Friday, from handfuls of demonstrators on Pacific islands to mass rallies in cities like Melbourne, Mumbai, Berlin and New York.The Swedish teenage activist Greta Thunberg, who inspired the protests, called it the biggest climate strike in history.

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One of them was Michael Pion, who was wearing a Trump 'Make America Great Again' hat. He told the BBC: "I thought it would be funny to see how people would react to the MAGA hat and to be honest with you ultimately it wasn’t that exciting."

He thinks it's important to pay attention to climate change so "we can avoid the ‘Mad Max’ scenario that will unfold if we don’t take some kind of action about it relatively soon".

Greta Thunberg continued her speech by talking about the UN climate action summit, which takes place in New York next week. Leaders from around the world will be attending the event."The eyes of the world will be on them," she said. "We will make them hear us.""We are doing this to wake the leaders up. We are doing this to get them to act. We deserve a safe future and we demand a safe future. Is that really too much to ask?"Right now we are the ones who are making a difference. If no one else will take action then we will."It should not be that way. We should not be the ones who are fighting for the future. And yet, here we are."She finished her speech on a powerful and optimistic note."Together and united we are unstoppable."This is what people power looks like. We will rise to the challenge. We will hold those most responsible for this crisis accountable and we will make the world leaders act."We can and we will."And if you belong to that small group of people who feel threatened by us then we have some very bad news for you."Because this is only the beginning. Change is coming, whether they like it or not."
Greta Thunberg's speech continues... here are some of the highlights:"We are striking today in over 150 countries on all continents, including Antarctica."We are not in school today and this time we are not alone - we have some adults who are not at work today either. And why? Because this is an emergency. Our house is on fire. And it's not just the young people's house. We all live here, it affects all of us. We will not just stand aside and watch."We are united behind the science and we will do everything in our power to stop this crisis from getting worse, even if that means skipping school or work, because this is more important."Why should we study for a future that is being taken away from us? That is being stolen for profit?"Some people are saying we should study to become climate scientists and politicians, but by then it will be too late. We need to do this now."Pay attention to the facts."Nowhere have I found anyone in power who wants to tell it like it is. They leave that burden to us - us teenagers, us children."
Almost everyone who went on stage criticised the president’s environmental policies. Some kids talked about what individuals can do to reduce their footprint on the environment.Vinicius Guimarães, who is 18, held a sign in English saying, "Sorry for our president".He told the BBC he has no links to political parties and that his motivation to show up today was the survival of his generation.“We have to fight now because we’re the ones who will have to deal with the consequences," he said.Here was President Bolsonaro's recent comments on the Amazon fires, which UN officials have described as extremely concerning for the planet’s natural life support She read out the numbers of people at each protest, including:Students in the Global Climate Strike march in New York CityImage caption: Students in the Global Climate Strike march in New York CityYou might be tempted to ask, like the student protesters above, where are the grown-ups in the room? Why haven’t any of our world leaders sorted this out?Well… some of them have been trying, but it hasn’t always gone smoothly.One recent milestone was the 2015 Paris climate deal, which united all the world’s nations in a single agreement on tackling climate change.World leaders clapping after the signing of the Paris climate agreement
President Donald Trump announced two years later that he would withdraw from the deal - making the US the only country in the world to reject it.Nonetheless, the deal is still considered historic, with signatories committing to keeping temperatures below 2.0C (3.6F) above pre-industrial times.You can read more about what it covers here.
Employees at Amazon headquarters in Seattle are joining today's climate strike, protesting against a crisis they say their employer has contributed to.Ahead of the global protests, the company's CEO – Jeff Bezos – outlined a climate pledge that would see Amazon become carbon neutral by 2040.But the strikers, from the group Amazon Employees for Climate Justice (AECJ), say this isn't enough.The group says Mr Bezos' plan to offset Amazon's carbon emissions by 2040 stops far short of its demand that the company stop using fossil fuels entirely within the next decade.Jeff Bezos' pledge to offset carbon emissions by 2040 falls short of his workers' demandsImage caption: Jeff Bezos' pledge to offset carbon emissions by 2040 falls short of his workers' demands AECJ also called for Mr Bezos to stop donating to politicians and lobbying groups that deny the existence or the extent of the climate crisis, and to stop working with oil and gas companies on the exploration of fossil fuel reserves.The Amazon CEO has not agreed to these two demands.Rebecca Sheppard is a senior product manager at Amazon and a member of AECJ.She told BBC Newsday earlier today: "It’s absolutely a victory, but it’s not everything that we asked for. We actually don't want to be carbon neutral, we want to be zero emissions. We don't want to rely on carbon offsets."You can listen to Rebecca's radio interview here.

Foley Square overflowed, and a number of streets had to be closed due to the sheer number of those marching. There's a range of people, with many school students marching in groups.While there was excitement among those marching, there was also a sense that this collective action must spur some change.For many of the younger activists the stakes are too high to ignore."It’s either we miss school or we miss life," says 17-year-old Phillip Austin.

In Brazil’s largest city, São Paulo, a large number of young kids are expected to attend the climate march starting at 20:00 GMT – and some of them are toddlers.The recent fires in the Amazon have raised environmental awareness in the country, and some parents are concerned about how to explain their concerns to small children without worrying them."They are very young, so we didn’t tell them everything [about the recent climate debates]. But we are taking them to the march," said Mariana Bombonato about her daughter Manuela, two, and the other children at the parental nursery her daughter attends. They will all be at the march later on Friday."We told the children that everyone would wear special T-shirts today to show their concern for the planet, and I bought Manuela a book about planet Earth. We've been talking about ways to protect the environment, and when we shower she says, 'we can’t stay long because the water belongs to the planet.'"Flora Monteiro, another mother from the group, says her son Bento, who turns three in two months' time, hasn’t fully understood the events planned for this Friday, "but he knows it’s a move to take care of the nature and the trees"."More than the environmental cause itself, I’m happy to show him that he can mobilise for whatever he believes in and have an active voice," says Monteiro.
Roundup: demands for climate justice heard around the worldMillions took to the streets today to demand government action on climate change.
Thousands have gathered in Foley Square for a march that will end in Battery City Park.The school district has given the city’s 1.1 million school children permission to skip school to take part in the day’s demonstrations.They are here to show solidarity and encourage law makers to take action and hold polluters accountable. Many parents have also accompanied their children to the march.Sanjay Patil, who lives in Queens, brought along some of the day’s youngest protesters: his daughters Anika, six, and Reyha, who is just one.Reyha's shirt - "I really do care. Why don't you?" - was a reference to a coat worn by US First Lady Melania Trump that sent social media into meltdown."We want to show solidarity with all the kids striking," Patil said. He also stressed the importance of bringing his daughters to the rally. "They are going to inherit the mess we created, so they should know that everyone should be a part of the solution."
What is climate change?
3 December 2018
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Media captionMatt McGrath explains why we should care about climate change
BBC News looks at what we know and don't know about the Earth's changing climate.

What is climate change?
The planet's climate has constantly been changing over geological time. The global average temperature today is about 15C, though geological evidence suggests it has been much higher and lower in the past.

However, the current period of warming is occurring more rapidly than many past events. Scientists are concerned that the natural fluctuation, or variability, is being overtaken by a rapid human-induced warming that has serious implications for the stability of the planet's climate.

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What is the "greenhouse effect"?
The greenhouse effect refers to the way the Earth's atmosphere traps some of the energy from the Sun. Solar energy radiating back out to space from the Earth's surface is absorbed by atmospheric greenhouse gases and re-emitted in all directions.

The energy that radiates back down to the planet heats both the lower atmosphere and the surface. Without this effect, the Earth would be about 30C colder, making our planet hostile to life.

Scientists believe we are adding to the natural greenhouse effect with gases released from industry and agriculture (known as emissions), trapping more energy and increasing the temperature. This is commonly referred to as global warming or climate change.

The most important of these greenhouse gases in terms of its contribution to warming is water vapour, but concentrations show little change and it persists in the atmosphere for only a few days.

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On the other hand, carbon dioxide (CO2) persists for much longer (it would take hundreds of years for it to return to pre-industrial levels). In addition, there is only so much CO2 that can be soaked up by natural reservoirs such as the oceans.

Most man-made emissions of CO2 are through the burning of fossil fuels, as well as through cutting down carbon-absorbing forests. Other greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide are also released through human activities, but their overall abundance is small compared with carbon dioxide.

Since the industrial revolution began in 1750, CO2 levels have risen by more than 30% and methane levels have risen more than 140%. The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is now higher than at any time in at least 800,000 years.I
Temperature records going back to the late 19th Century show that the average temperature of the Earth's surface has increased by about 0.8C (1.4F) in the last 100 years. About 0.6C (1.0F) of this warming occurred in the last three decades.

Satellite data shows an average increase in global sea levels of some 3mm per year in recent decades. A large proportion of the change in sea level is accounted for by the thermal expansion of seawater. As seawater warms up, the molecules become less densely packed, causing an increase in the volume of the ocean.

But the melting of mountain glaciers and the retreat of polar ice sheets are also important contributors. Most glaciers in temperate regions of the world and along the Antarctic Peninsula are in retreat. Since 1979, satellite records show a dramatic decline in Arctic sea-ice extent, at an annual rate of 4% per decade. In 2012, the ice extent reached a record minimum that was 50% lower than the 1979-2000 average.

The Greenland Ice Sheet has experienced record melting in recent years; if the entire 2.8 million cu km sheet were to melt, it would raise sea levels by 6m.

Satellite data shows the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is also losing mass, and a recent study indicated that East Antarctica, which had displayed no clear warming or cooling trend, may also have started to lose mass in the last few years. But scientists are not expecting dramatic changes. In some places, mass may actually increase as warming temperatures drive the production of more snows.

The effects of a changing climate can also be seen in vegetation and land animals. These include earlier flowering and fruiting times for plants and changes in the territories (or ranges) occupied by animals.In its 2013 assessment of the science, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) forecast a range of possible scenarios based on computer modelling. But most simulations indicate that global surface temperature change by the end of the 21st Century is likely to exceed 1.5C, relative to 1850.A threshold of 2C had long been regarded as the gateway to dangerous warming. More recently, scientists and policy makers have argued that keeping temperature rise to within 1.5C is a safer limit for the world.
An IPCC report in 2018 suggested that keeping to the 1.5C target would require "rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society".

Even if we cut greenhouse gas emissions dramatically now, scientists say the effects will continue because parts of the climate system, particularly large bodies of water and ice, can take hundreds of years to respond to changes in temperature. It also takes greenhouse gases decades to be removed from the atmosphere.

Media captionClimate change: How 1.5C could change the world
How will climate change affect us?
There are varying degrees of uncertainty about the scale of potential impacts. But the changes could drive freshwater shortages, bring sweeping changes in food production conditions, and increase the number of deaths from floods, storms, heat waves and droughts.

This is because climate change is expected to increase the frequency of extreme weather events - though linking any single event to global warming is complicated.

Scientists forecast more rainfall overall, but say the risk of drought in inland areas during hot summers will increase. More flooding is expected from storms and rising sea levels. There are, however, likely to be very strong regional variations in these patterns.

Poorer countries, which are least equipped to deal with rapid change, could suffer the most.

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Plant and animal extinctions are predicted as habitats change faster than species can adapt, and the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that the health of millions could be threatened by increases in malaria, water-borne disease and malnutrition.

Media captionHow temperatures have risen since 1884
As an increased amount of CO2 is released into the atmosphere, there is increased uptake of CO2 by the oceans, and this leads to them becoming more acidic. This ongoing process of acidification could pose major problems for the world's coral reefs, as the changes in chemistry prevent corals from forming a calcified skeleton, which is essential for their survival.

Computer models are used to study the dynamics of the Earth's climate and make projections about future temperature change. But these climate models differ on "climate sensitivity" - the amount of warming or cooling that occurs as a particular factor, such as CO2. goes up or down.

Models also differ in the way that they express "climate feedbacks".

Global warming will cause some changes that look likely to create further heating, such as the release of large quantities of the greenhouse gas methane as permafrost (permanently frozen soil found mainly in the Arctic) melts. This is known as a positive climate feedback.

But negative feedbacks exist that could offset warming. Various "reservoirs" on Earth absorb CO2 as part of the carbon cycle - the process through which carbon is exchanged between, for example, the oceans and the land.

The question is: how will these balance out?