Environmental activist Greta Thunberg said on Monday that young people who have been mobilizing for the climate for five years have been forced to “grow up too quickly” to fight the damage caused by previous generations.
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The first World Youth Climate Day, born from activist commitment through the Fridays for Future movement, mobilized thousands of young people around the world on 15 March 2019.
“We are a lot of young people who grew up with the environmental movement and grew up too quickly to take up our responsibilities and clean up the older generation,” she told an AFP journalist on Monday during an activity in Stockholm. Adding that she and her companions felt like a “broken record.”
The activist, accompanied by about a dozen activists, symbolically blocked the entrance to the Swedish Parliament, sat in front of it and raised a banner with their classic slogan: “Climate justice now.”
“The Swedish government, as well as all other governments in the world, are not treating the climate crisis as a crisis,” Greta Thunberg said. “They continue to allow short-term economic profits to take precedence over the lives of people and the planet.”
The Swede, who gained worldwide notoriety with her “school strikes for climate” that began at the age of 15 in Sweden, regularly participates in such activities where she denounces the lack of public policies in the face of climate global warming.
According to SciencesPo political scientist Joost de Moor, in an interview with AFP in October, the Fridays for Future movement and its climate marches have had a global impact.
This is “raising awareness”. This “also contributed to increasing the legitimacy of the development of pro-climate policies, making it easier for politicians wanting to act on the issue,” Mr. De Moor noted, citing the example of Frans Timmermans, former Executive Vice President of the European Commission responsible for the Green Deal.
Despite this, climate policies are far from responding to the concerns raised by scientists, the researcher says.
The European Environment Agency warned on Monday that Europe could face “catastrophic” situations if it does not assess the climate risks it faces such as extreme heat, drought, forest fires and floods.
