Maltese students will join others around the world in demanding action to combat climate change on Friday with a symbolic strike.

Students will be marching from the University of Malta to Parliament in Valletta at noon, as thousands of others around the world also hold rallies and marches of their own.

Ignore global warming... at Malta's expense, protesters warn

“The University of Malta student council shall be rallying students and youths in Malta to participate in this Friday’s global students4climate strikes. The strikes so far have students in a hundred countries confirmed participating around the globe,” KSU President Carla Galea said on Wednesday.

“We are calling on all students to join us to take action on our future," she added.

The road between the University’s Msida campus and Valletta will be closed for 30 minutes, between 12.30pm and 1pm, this Friday, as part of the march.

Steve Zammit Lupi, who helped organise the local strike, said students from Valletta’s St Albert the Great College would also be gathering in front of Parliament.

Malta again fails emission test, has to pay "hundreds of thousands"

Other schools were being encouraged to hold events on school grounds too.

The wave of youth activism began with 16-year-old Greta Thunberg from Sweden, who last August began camping outside the Swedish parliament and accused lawmakers of failing to uphold their commitments to fight climate change as agreed to under the Paris climate accord.

Watch: Thousands skip school for climate protests

The young Ms Thunberg says she was inspired by students from the Parkland school in Florida, who walked out of classes in protest against the US gun laws that enabled a bloody massacre on their campus.

As word of her strike spread, she made headlines, and was invited to speak to climate negotiators in talks last December in Poland and more recently to global leaders in Davos, Switzerland.

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