University Strikes for Climate will take place in Prague, Brno, and Olomouc over the next seven days. The student protests will draw attention to the high cost of living and unaffordable housing, contrasted with the profits of fossil fuel billionaires, the organisers told journalists yesterday.
The week-long event began yesterday afternoon with lectures and debates at Palacky University in Olomouc.
On Sunday, 17 November, there will be a protest march in Prague entitled ‘The End of Oligarchy in Bohemia’, said representatives of the Universities for Climate initiative.
From 18-20 November, the strike will take the form of a series of thematic lectures, discussions and workshops in Brno, culminating in a march through the city centre on Wednesday.
Topics of the lectures will include the relationship between the climate and housing crises, and energy poverty.
“This year we will be more on the streets than in the faculties,” said Lucie Polakova, spokeswoman for the initiative. “We will be more vocal than in previous years because our demands have not been heard. It bothers us that in our country it is more important to turn tons of coal into billions of crowns than to ensure a dignified and healthy life for us and our children.”
According to the students, social reality is far from the ideals of equality and democracy that are celebrated on 17 November. “Universities for Climate appeals to the public and powerful individuals through protest action to realise that these ideals are not accessible through the current system,” said Matej Dlab, from the initiative.
The students argue that a handful of billionaires are influencing the political direction of the Czech Republic to their benefit, and to the detriment of the rest of the population. In their statement, they call for an end to the oligarchy in which a few businessmen are getting rich by destroying the environment.
In a statement on the university strike, the movement says the current climate situation is symptomatic of a deeper problem, and that the current economic system based on unlimited growth on a planet with limited resources is to blame for today’s crisis.
Universities for Climate is a student movement that started in 2019 in response to the high school Fridays for Future initiative, sparked by Swedish activist Greta Thunberg. This will be the fourth time students have protested with a climate strike, after the movement organised previous strikes in 2019, 2022 and 2023.
One of the most important pillars of the movement is the concept of climate justice. Not everyone contributes equally to climate change, and it affects everyone differently. According to the movement, the consequences of the climate crisis are felt most by those who contribute the least.
