While her classmates will be settling down to the first lesson of the day 13-year-old Holly Gillibrand will be holding a one pupil protest outside the front gates.

Incensed by the lack of action on climate change the young campaigner is starting a week of one hour strikes.

Holly, from Fort William, will stand outside Lochaber High School for an hour a day between 8.45am and 9.45am to raise awareness over the issue.

Her action has been inspired by 15-year-old Swedish student Greta Thunberg who last year went on strike from school in Sweden after a spate of heat waves and wildfires.

Her demands for the Swedish government reduce carbon emissions gained worldwide attention and she has inspired thousands of pupils across the world to take part in student strikes.

As of December 2018, more than 20,000 students had held strikes in countries across the world including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands, Germany, Finland, Denmark, Japan, Switzerland, the UK and the United States.

Holly said: “I am striking because we are running out of time. Thousands of children around the world should not be having to miss classes because of our leaders inability to treat the climate crisis as a crisis.”

Holly announced her planned weekly strike in December from her Twitter account in a message addressed to Prime Minister Theresa May in which she said: “I am going to be striking from school because I will not sit silently while you and the British government contributes to the destruction of our only planet.”

Friday 15th February will see a UK-wide Youth Strike 4 Climate with students of schools, colleges and universities planning actions around the UK, including one at Glasgow University.

The action is part of a campaign backed by Extinction Rebellion which is demanding the UK Government reduces carbon emissions to net zero by 2025.
In a recent interview with The Herald, Holly said: “Climate change is what concerns me most about the world.

“My family have been worried about climate change, but it’s only started dawning on me in the last few years that it’s really serious and that we need to do something about it.

“We stopped eating meat because that’s bad for the environment and we try to limit the amount of times we go in the car. We use green energy and we’re going to start growing our own vegetables.

“Politically, there just needs to be much more action, because politicians and leaders are having all these climate talks, but nothing is actually happening.”

The worldwide action follows the UN climate summit in Poland which agreed rules for implementing a 2015 agreement which aims to keep global warming as close to 1.5C as possible by 2100.

However, the summit made little progress in increasing governments’ commitments to cut emissions and the world remains on track for 3C of warming, by the target date, which scientists says will bring catastrophic extreme weather.

Jennifer Morgan, the executive director of Greenpeace International, said: “People are fed up, outraged and are taking action to defend their homes and children and pushing their leaders to act.

“These people are the hope of our generation and governments must finally stand with them and give us all reasons for hope.”