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China's first student climate activist plants trees to protest

When millions of young people around the world inspired by climate activist Greta Thunberg took to the streets to demand action from their governments on climate change, nothing like this happened in China. Although China is the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases.

Strike attempts were cut off by the police

The 16-year old Howey Ou was very disappointed. So she started a strike in May, on her own in front of a government building. After 7 days the police took her off the street, lecturing her that her strike was illegal.

After attempting to get gain permission for her strike first, she found another way to protest: Planting trees.

“Protesting needs a lot of courage in China,” she was quoted by Deutsche Welle. “But planting trees is something we can do.” According to her Twitter account, 18 trees were planted in September.

“Climate crisis is the biggest threat to human civilization and the entire ecosystem, if my fight for climate and ecosystem is against the rules, then the rules must change”, Howey Ou posted via Twitter.

“Fridays for Future are being ridiculed and cursed a lot on the Chinese internet,” she is quoted by Deutsche Welle. “But I do get some positive comments. People say: look, the Chinese students are planting trees, while the foreigners just speak empty words.”

Image: Howey Ou

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Written by Sonja

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