They came in school uniforms, bee costumes and T-shirts with fiery slogans, buzzing with energy. As they arranged into marching order, they chanted, “Who are we? Students! What do we want? Strong action!” 

Last Friday, Sept. 27, this patchwork platoon of Moroccan students and volunteers gathered next to a Casablanca movie theater under the glaring afternoon sun. The 600 or so young activists were there for one of the kingdom’s first-ever youth climate marches, joining their peers leading climate strikes worldwide.

“Like Greta, we want our voice to be heard by the decision-makers and leaders of communities,” said Ismail Chaaouf, a coordinator for Greenpeace Morocco, referring to the Swedish teen climate activist Greta Thunberg. “It’s time. Tomorrow is too late.”

Morocco, like Thunberg’s motherland, is already taking big steps to combat climate change, earning second place on a 2019 ranking of countries’ efforts. (Sweden came in first.) The honor was largely thanks to Morocco’s ambitious sustainable development plans and big-ticket renewable energy projects like Noor, the largest concentrated solar energy plant in the world.