Students hold placards as they attend a climate march in Brussels, Belgium, on Feb. 28, 2019. A new climate march by schoolchildren and college students was organized across Belgium on Thursday with the participation of Swedish teen climate activist Greta Thunberg. (Xinhua/Zhang Cheng)
BRUSSELS, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- A new climate march by schoolchildren and college students was organized across Belgium on Thursday with the participation of Swedish teen climate activist Greta Thunberg.
Some 3,000 young people gathered in Antwerp, the second most populous city in Belgium, to demand concrete political measures against global warming.
Anuna De Wever and Kyra Gantois, initiators of the Youth For Climate movement, led the procession, accompanied by Greta Thunberg.
"Our message to politicians today is: you can continue to say that we have to go back to school ... or you can get to work," said Anuna De Wever.
Greta Thunberg spoke forcefully, recalling that "the politicians and the people in power have been doing for far too long without doing anything to fight against global warming".
The 16-year-old Swede will also take part in a march in Hamburg in Germany on Friday.
"We are being told that we are exaggerating, but what I find exaggerated is a three-degree increase in global warming that we are experiencing under the current policy," continued the representative of Youth for Climate's local branch, Warre Germis.
"A transition is needed towards a greener society", he concluded.
The march in capital Brussels gathered 1,500 participants, police said on Twitter. The initiative was launched by a local delegation of Youth for Climate and Students for Climate.
Nearly 5,000 students from primary and secondary schools in Huy, a French-speaking town in Belgium in the Walloon Region, roamed the streets of their city in protest on Thursday morning, local police said.
On the Grand-Place in Mechelen, 30 km north of Brussels, more than 1,000 young people gathered for a first walk for the climate in the city, organized by a local branch of Youth for Climate.
The next "Thursday for the climate" march in Belgium is expected to take place in the university city of Louvain-la-Neuve on March 7, announced Youth for Climate representatives.
