More than a hundred artists and professionals from all areas of culture signed two letters in support of the students and calling for collective action to end fossil fuels by 2030, Climáximo reported this Thursday, November 20th.
The environmental movement said, in a statement, that the two letters – Open Letter: Culture to End the Fossil ea Open Letter from the Music Industry for the End to Fossil by 2030 and Support for the Student Movement – bring together more than 100 signatures from artists, musicians, writers, actors and creators.
Capicua, Joana Bértolo, Rui Chafes, Paulo Pascoal, Fado Bicha, Manuel Pureza, Gisela Casimiro, André Carrilho, Bordalo II, Lena d’Água, Manuela Azevedo, Nuno Saraiva, Isabel Abreu and Xinobi, are some of the professionals who signed the letters.
“The Culture Charter highlights the importance of amplifying the voice of students, who since 2019 have occupied schools and universities to demand real action against the climate crisis, and calls on all cultural agents to use their platforms actively in facilitating the fight for climate justice”, says Climáximo.
In the Music Charter, “the role of music as a driver of social awareness is reinforced and demands a national decarbonization plan by 2030, the end of the use of and subsidies for fossil fuels and support for clean and renewable energy, showing solidarity with students and highlighting that ‘without a future, there is no music’”.
The letters invite the culture sector and society as a whole to participate in the demonstration “Our Future Is Not for Sale”, scheduled for Saturday.
“The demonstration on November 22nd is an opportunity for us to join our voices, as humans, fathers, mothers, grandparents, empathetic and conscious people, who know that if there is a unifying cause it should be the environmental one, to call for our survival on the planet”, says Capicua cited in the statement.
“We must support and help younger people in their fight for climate justice as they are courageously defending their future but also ours”, comments Rui Chafes in this same statement.
“The lack of response from successive governments to student demands for climate justice is a serious failure to fulfill public and political responsibility, and a serious failure that affects us all. Science validates the students’ arguments. Their demands may sound too ambitious, but they are valid”, considers, in turn, writer Joana Bértolo.
The environmental movement recalls that this week three other letters of support for students were launched, which include more than 100 names of university and secondary school teachers and health professionals and more than a hundred mothers, fathers and caregivers.
The launch of the letters takes place in the middle of a week of school and university strikes called by the Student Climate Strike.
The demonstration “Our Future Is Not for Sale” takes place on Saturday at 3:00 pm in Largo Camões, in Lisbon and has more than 10 supporting organizations, including Associação Habita, Movimento Cívico Ar Puro, the National Federation of Doctors and the Union of Doctors of the South Zone.