The Return of May '68: Students Launch Occupations for Climate Justice

Sleeping bags, backpacks, shoes, and dishes from last night's dinner are scattered around the halls. It has been three days since students at Liceu Camões, a high school in central Lisbon, began their occupation, using time away from class to educate each other on what really matters in a planet on fire: climate justice, revolutionary politics, and movement strategy. Grassroots teach-ins are interwoven with drums and chants that interrupt those remaining in class. "Pelo clima. Unidos. Ocupamos. Resistimos!" (For the climate. United. We occupy. We resist!) they shouted.

Still, the students felt like they weren't being heard. And rather than sit back and let the occupation slowly fizzle out, they took matters into their own hands.

In the morning hours before the school day began, students erected haphazard barricades, clicked themselves into metal "lock-ons," and clambered onto the roof with drums and banners. The school was shut down. The youth had relinquished their consent for a system that expected obedience over survival.

Under the banner, "be realistic, ask for the impossible," Parisian students created a revolutionary moment. Now, we too must be realistic—we are in planetary emergency—and ask for the impossible—end fossil.

Under the action callout "End Fossil: Occupy!," 49 additional schools and universities like Liceu Camões were occupied between September to December 2022. For the first time, the youth climate movement radicalized its tactics and demands in an internationally coordinated action against the fossil economy. Mounting pressure led to wins. Most prominently, the University of Barcelona agreed to run a mandatory module on climate and ecological breakdown for all 14,000 students and a similar training program for 6,000 academic staff.

And yet, we are still far from ending the fossil economy. Emissions from fossil fuels hit 36.6 billion tonnes in 2022, an all-time record. Meanwhile, the 20 largest oil and gas companies are planning investments worth $1.5 trillion in new fossil fuel projects, including 195 "carbon bombs" that would release at least a billion tonnes of CO2 over their lifetimes.

The relentless expansion of the fossil economy puts us on track for 3.2°C heating by 2100. To put that into context, at 1.2°C heating above pre-industrial levels, we are already experiencing continental drought, crop failure, climate famine, killer heatwaves, deadly flooding, displacement, and mass extinction. At 2°C, 1 billion people will be subject to a lethal combination of heat and humidity. 3°C could "unleash suffering beyond anything that humans have ever experienced."

Meanwhile, the architects of catastrophe—"the big five" fossil fuel companies (Exxon, Shell, Chevron, Total, BP)—netted a record annual profit of $200 billion, money snatched from people who not only face an uninhabitable planet, but an ongoing cost of living scandal.

They are profiting from our common ruin. But we refuse to die for fossil capital.

That's why today—May 2, 2023—End Fossil has returned to occupy schools and universities. Together, we will rise up, disrupt normalcy, and fight on our own grounds for climate justice and a fossil-free world.

We will be the spark that ignites the rest of society into action, just like the Parisian students of May '68, who galvanized one of the largest general strikes in French history. Under the banner, "be realistic, ask for the impossible," Parisian students created a revolutionary moment. Now, we too must be realistic—we are in planetary emergency—and ask for the impossible—end fossil.

The time is now. We call on all of society to join us in "disruption to end the destruction." Students occupying, workers striking, people marching, together, united, we can smash the fossil economy, end the cost of living scandal, and win a just, habitable world.

As the May '68 slogan goes, "Run, comrade, run. The old world is behind you."