climate strike

Meanings

1. A protest in which people absent themselves from professional or educational activities in order to join demonstrations calling for action to counter climate change.

Etymology

Firstly coined in 2015 during a mass demonstration at UN Climate Change Conference in Paris, the expression took off only in 2018 after the Swedish activist Greta Thunberg started skipping school on Fridays in order to protest in front of the national parliament. In September 2019 around six million people joined the climate strike worldwide.