GENEVA, April 7, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Tens of thousands of people demonstrated
Saturday in several Swiss cities against climate change, the Swiss news
agency Keystone-ATS reported.
Around 50,000 marched in all, the news agency report estimated, including
15,000 in Zurich and up to nine thousand in the capital Berne and in
Lausanne.
“It’s about knowing if finally we want to listen to the voice of science,”
high school student Jan Burckhardt told ATS.
“Save the climate please: it’s the last time we ask politely,” read one of
the placards at the Lausanne demonstration, an AFP photographer saw.
The marches were organised by an alliance of activist groups in
Switzerland, including Greenpeace, Swiss Youth for Climate and green groups.
“We don’t want to stop our movement as long as our claims have not been
heard, as long as we have not obtained concrete results,” said Laurane Conod,
one of the organisers of a smaller march in Geneva.
The climate change protests in Switzerland were in part inspired by the
teenage Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who started weekly school strikes
calling for policy change on the climate issue.