This is a letter by students that are demanding their right to have a future.
We are heading towards climate and social breakdown. In 2019, millions of students around the world marched, demanding world governments an adequate response to the climate crisis. What is the adequate response that students should have now when governments continue to fail us?
2023 was the year with the highest fossil fuel emissions on record. We’ve just lived through the hottest summer of our lives as 2024 is the first year to surpass 1.5C of warming above pre-industrial tempertures, becoming the hottest year ever registered.
The science is clear: we have by the end of this decade to avoid a point of no return where the climate crisis becomes irreversible. Unless we massively cut greenhouse gas emissions, there is no possibility of the future we are studying for. We are scared, we are angry, and we are not giving up on the world governments are destroying.
There is no governmental plan, in any country, to avoid the mass starvation, death, sickness and displacement of millions of people and the collapse of entire ecosystems and societies. Science tells us this is the present and future we are all facing unless we achieve an end to fossil fuels by 2030 in the global north countries.
We, students that were born into climate catastrophe are the last generation that can stop it. We will not allow you to steal our right for a habitable planet, a life worth living, the future we are studying for and everything we are dreaming to become.
We demand that our government delivers a plan to end the burning, extraction and usage of fossil fuels in our country by 2030 through a just transition that doesn’t harm those who have not caused this crisis we are all facing.
We, students across the world, are demanding our right to have a future. We don’t want to have to jeopardize our education in order to have that right. Nevertheless, if you don’t give us the only demand that can secure our lives, we will have no choice but to fight for it.
Unless you give us this demand, between April and May of 2025, students will walk out of classes and start a two weeklong disruption period of their schools. We understand this as a legitimate and necessary action in order to meet this demand. We also understand that if you choose to continue to fail us, this will only be the beginning.
Student’s letter to end fossil by 2030 template, adaptable to each country, here
We call on students around the world to join the international call out to paralyze schools and universities in the spring of 2025 as a response to global north countries failing to commit to end fossil fuels by 2030. Let’s fight for global climate justice and end the fossil economy now!
Anyone from any part of the world can join the call out, as long as they are committed to our core demand and follow our five principles: student-led movement, escalate until we win, in spring we disrupt, internationalist movement, climate and global justice framework.
If you are a student and want to organize a STUDENT’S LETTER TO END FOSSIL FUELS BY 2030 in your country starting this fall:
The student’s letter to end fossil fuels by 2030 is organized and signed by students, as well as the two weeklong disruption period in schools and universities during the spring of 2025.
We won’t stop fighting until our demand, end fossil fuels by 2030, is met. As governments continue to fail us in stopping climate collapse, we, the youth, will continue to escalate and radicalize our movement until we achieve global climate justice.
Our intention is to paralyze schools and universities in several counties as a response to governments not attending to our demand, disrupting business as usual during two weeks in the spring of 2025 to show that normality can’t go on while we are living into climate breakdown.
We are demanding an end to fossil fuels by 2030 within the climate justice political framework and historical responsibility of the global north. We want to end fossil fuels by 2030 to achieve climate and social justice globally. We want to end fossils through a socially just global process.
There will be no future without an end of fossil economy within climate justice deadlines at an international level. We aim for an international coordinated mass, radical youth movement that is willing to stop climate collapse.
The end of the fossil fuels by 2030 is the deadline dictated by science and justice for the countries of the global North, so that we can put a fair stop to the climate crisis and not exceed the safety barrier of 1.5ºC of warming.
The Special Report on the Impacts of Global Warming of 1.5°C, prepared by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a UN organization that analyzes thousands of scientific papers, warns that the world needs to achieve zero net CO2 emissions by 2050 to have a 66% chance of staying below the catastrophic 1.5°C warming limit. But if this happens there is still a 1 in 3 chance that we will reach the collapse of the Earth’s systems. The goal of zero emissions by 2050 is too daunting, regardless of other political and economic considerations. We need to achieve carbon neutrality sooner.
The historical responsibility for emissions over the centuries and the ability of countries to act must be taken into account for a fair distribution of emission cuts. The Climate Fairness Reference Calculator shows how each country’s emissions should be calculated, based on various parameters. The calculator shows that by 2030 the EU as well as most global north countries should have zero emissions. We consider global social justice to be a fundamental principle, and, in this regard, we have adopted these guidelines.
The proposals of the current political framework guarantee a warming of more than 3°C, which means reaching several points of no return at planetary level during this century. The plan drawn up by world leaders is to produce 110% more fossil fuels than is considered compatible with the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5ºC. Emissions keep rising as the global temperature rises: we are doing precisely the opposite of what we should be doing, drastically cutting emissions. This is condemning our future and leading humanity to total collapse.
The end to fossil fuels by 2030 in global north countries is non-negotiable: it is a condition for halting the climate crisis and to achieve global climate justice, saving thousands of lives, and guaranteeing our future. The only impediments at the moment are a lack of political will, not a lack of science or technology.
