NNW/25-09-2019

For world leaders and environmentalists across the world, 16 year old activist Greta Thunberg's emotive speech at the United Nation's Climate Action Summit on Monday, has come as a shock. Teenager activist from Sweden Greta Thunberg did not spare world leaders while talking about climate change and its consequences.Greta Thunberg's speech at the UN Climate Action Summit has gone viral. From college students to housewives, environmentalists to media persons, bureaucrats to private investors have praised Greta Thunberg for her `to the point' speech.Not only she won their heart but compelled them to endorse her completely.

Climate activist Greta Thunberg, 16, addressed the U.N.'s Climate Action Summit in New York City on Monday. Greta who has suffered because of climate change, has clearly told world leaders as to what she thought of them because of their inaction on the most talked about climate change.

Teen climate activist who is known for non sparing approach, heard about climate change when she was barely eight. But at that time, she did not understand the meaning of climate change. In 2014, she had suffered from depression. She had been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, obsessive compulsive disorder and selective mutism. In August 2018, Thunberg staged a demonstration outside the Swedish Parliament in August 2018 for stronger climate action. She was alone at that time but soon other students joined her. These students held similar protests in their own communities. They also organised a school climate strike movement with the name Fridays for Future. Greta Thumberg addressed 2018 United Nations Climate Change Conference and later strikes by students used to take place every week in different parts of the world. 

Daughter of Opera singer Malena Emman and actor Svante Thunberg, Greta Thunberg has focused on the risks posed by climate change. She speaks her mind. A prolific speaker, Greta Thunberg has persuaded her parents to give up eating meat and air travel. She has given speeches in public and assemblies and urged for immediate action to address the climate crisis. Here are some of excerpts from her speech in which she has questioned leaders as to how did they dare to steal dreams :

Here are some of excerpts from her fiery speech which was full of emotions... 

"My message is that we'll be watching you"... "You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I'm one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!..... "For more than 30 years, the science has been crystal clear. How dare you continue to look away and come here saying that you're doing enough, when the politics and solutions needed are still nowhere in sight.....if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil. And that I refuse to believe....

"The popular idea of cutting our emissions in half in 10 years only gives us a 50% chance of staying below 1.5 degrees [Celsius], and the risk of setting off irreversible chain reactions beyond human control.... "Fifty percent may be acceptable to you. But those numbers do not include tipping points, most feedback loops, additional warming hidden by toxic air pollution or the aspects of equity and climate justice. They also rely on my generation sucking hundreds of billions of tons of your CO2 out of the air with technologies that barely exist....

"So a 50% risk is simply not acceptable to us — we who have to live with the consequences... "How dare you pretend that this can be solved with just 'business as usual' and some technical solutions? With today's emissions levels, that remaining CO2 budget will be entirely gone within less than 8 1/2 years....."There will not be any solutions or plans presented in line with these figures here today, because these numbers are too uncomfortable. And you are still not mature enough to tell it like it is. Greta did not mince words and said, "You are failing us. But the young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say: We will never forgive you."

"We will not let you get away with this. Right here, right now is where we draw the line. The world is waking up. And change is coming, whether you like it or not.