At the United Nations (UN) Climate Action Summit, future generations demanded that the world leaders need to do more to clean up the mess that they have created. Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old Swedish climate activist asked the world leaders to leave for the future generations their fair share of a healthy planet to dwell on.
Greta Thunberg says the world leaders are betraying and failing future generations. The current generations are robbing the future generations off of their right to live on a healthy planet.
“This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back in school, on the other side of the ocean. Yet, you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you? You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet, I am one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire eco-systems are collapsing. We are at the beginning of mass extinction. And all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth. How dare you?”
Greta said the world leaders need to do more than just buy people for empty words and should rather present solutions and politics which are currently nowhere to be seen. She said the commitment of reducing the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius is not ambitious to sustain a healthy eco-system for people of her generation who will have to live the consequences.
Last month, Greta took two weeks to travel in a zero carbon-emitting boat from the United Kingdom to New York to attend the UN Climate Action Summit.
Greta Thunberg first began climate strikes in Sweden a year ago all by herself. Over time she has sparked the interests of millions of children around the globe in demanding action for climate change.
Phub Gyem