Climate strikes held around the world – as it happened

There will be nine climate change marches across the Philippines today. Students in General Santos City are kicking things off:

And Australian divers in the Philippines have even taken the campaign under the sea

And with that, I’ll be handing over to my colleague Hannah Ellis-Petersen who will be covering the strikes as they occur across Asia. Thanks for following along.

Today’s strike in WA also comes after the state’s Department of Education confirmed to Guardian Australia it had “automatically” blocked all access to schoolstrike4climate.com – the movement’s main organising site.

All public schools in WA had been blocked from accessing the site on school computers or internet, and screenshots showed the site was classed as an “advocacy organisation”.

A spokeswoman told Guardian Australia earlier this week it was “not a deliberate action”.

“The department has automated web-filtering tools and this site has been filtered automatically.”

But other similar advocacy organisations, such as Greenpeace or the Australian Youth Climate Council, were not blocked and can be accessed by students.

The spokeswoman said there were no current plans to remove the block.

“The filters are across the whole of the department, not individual schools. The department hasn’t received any requests from schools to remove the filter for this site. There’s nothing to stop students from viewing it from home or on their personal devices.”

Strike under way in Darwin in the Northern Territory.

A big crowd and a beautiful bird in Brisbane

The protests are now in full flow in Perth, Western Australia and Brisbane in Queensland.

Students are now out and protesting on the streets of Hong Kong.

Elisa, also told the South China Morning Post: “I feel like this is the way to make change.”

Another student adds: “It’s a permanent issue that could mess up our world in the future.”

15 Mar 201923.14 EDT

Michael McGowan

The crowd at Sydney’s Town Hall Square spilled out into George and Bathurst streets, thousands gathering to push for action on climate change.

As a giant inflatable Earth was knocked around the square, chants of “Hey hey, ho ho, Adani’s mine has got to go” and “Climate action now” reverberated through the city.

Angela Clark attended the protest with her daughter, Analise Hoatson, 14, from Cammeray high school. She didn’t share the concern of commentators who had criticised the students missing school.

“I couldn’t be more proud,” she told Guardian Australia. “Honestly, I don’t understand it. What could be more important?”

Analise agreed: “It’s just so important for the rest of the Earth’s life,” she said.

Jack Howard, 18, and Joseph Naffah, 15, from the Glenaeon Steiner school in Middle Cove, both said they felt ignored by politicians.

“What we’re doing is showing that we are aware of a lot of climate issues that it seems the people in power are trying to hide from us,” Howard said.

“Politicians absolutely do not care about us,” Naffah agreed. “The government is saying these children don’t understand what they’re doing. Really, we’re being educated.”

15 Mar 201923.04 EDT

Van Badham

In Wagga Wagga, Guardian Australia columnist Van Badham has this:

Climate is actually a much bigger issue in Michael McCormack’s own seat of Riverina (Wagga Wagga) than he would really like it to be. Climate issues have dominated the candidate debates held here for the NSW state election. You can’t bullshit farmers about climate change.

A mixture of striking school and university students today marched up and down Wagga’s main Bayliss Street chanting “Wake up, Wagga!” to cheers and hoots from the public (which I think was a bit of a surprise to the kids). As they hadn’t had an official action planned before today, they pulled together a replication of Wilcox’s cartoon.

A round up of what’s happened today:

• At least 20,000 people rallied in Melbourne alone, with tens of thousands in the capital cities of Sydney, Adelaide, Canberra and Hobart.

• Dozens of regional and rural towns and cities held their own strikes along the east coast.

• New Zealand began the day’s global movement, with thousands in Wellington and Auckland.

• NZ prime minister Jacinda Ardern went to a rally in support but Australia’s education minister, Dan Tehan; Queensland’s premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk; and Tasmania’s premier, Will Hodgman, said children should have protested outside of school hours.
  

• Protesters in Christchurch were evacuated as a precaution after a shooting occurred in a mosque in the city.