Brandishing banners for change in Place d’Armes, members of the United for Climate Justice Coalition threw their weight behind the global youth movement, which was spearheaded by Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg.

The coalition is comprised of trade unions, environmental organisations and other interest groups present in Luxembourg.

“It is climate change that most seriously threatens our survival on this planet. This is why a return to a model of society based on unbridled growth--and therefore on an economy that destroys biodiversity and the climate--is unacceptable,” the platform said in a press statement on Tuesday.

According to the group, Luxembourg carbon emissions rose to the “catastrophic level of 16.31 tonnes of CO2 per capita in 2019”.

In his state of the nation speech, prime minister Xavier Bettel (DP) said that reducing carbon emissions by 55% by the end of the next decade was a “real and for us realistic target.”

He also said that a CO2 tax to be introduced next year would add around 5 cents per litre to the cost of petrol and diesel, and that 285km of cycling paths were in the planning stages.