“My name is Greta Thunberg. I am 15 years old. I am from Sweden.
I speak on behalf of Climate Justice Now.
Many people say that Sweden is just a small country and it doesn’t matter what we do.
But I’ve learned you are never too small to make a difference.
And if a few children can get headlines all over the world just by not going to school, then imagine what we could all do together if we really wanted to. But to do that, we have to speak clearly, no matter how uncomfortable that may be.
You only speak of green eternal economic growth because you are too scared of being unpopular. You only talk about moving forward with the same bad ideas that got us into this mess, even when the only sensible thing to do is pull the emergency brake.
You are not mature enough to tell it like it is. Even that burden you leave to us children. But I don’t care about being popular. I care about climate justice and the living planet.
Our civilization is being sacrificed for the opportunity of a very small number of people to continue making enormous amounts of money.
Our biosphere is being sacrificed so that rich people in countries like mine can live in luxury. It is the sufferings of the many which pay for the luxuries of the few.
The year 2078, I will celebrate my 75th birthday. If I have children maybe they will spend that day with me. Maybe they will ask me about you. Maybe they will ask why you didn’t do anything while there still was time to act.
You say you love your children above all else, and yet you are stealing their future in front of their very eyes.
Until you start focusing on what needs to be done rather than what is politically possible, there is no hope. We cannot solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis.
We need to keep the fossil fuels in the ground, and we need to focus on equity. And if solutions within the system are so impossible to find, maybe we should change the system itself.
We have not come here to beg world leaders to care. You have ignored us in the past and you will ignore us again.
We have run out of excuses and we are running out of time.
We have come here to let you know that change is coming, whether you like it or not. The real power belongs to the people.
Thank you.”
-Greta Thunberg, 15-year-old Swedish climate activist who has inspired teens around the world with her Climate Strike campaign. Full text of her speech at the UN COP24 summit in Katowice, Poland, which ended Saturday with an agreement struck — barely — between some 200 negotiating countries. The deal keeps the process under the Paris agreement alive, but with a set of rules that most scientists and diplomats agree is not nearly sufficient to meet the Paris agreement’s goals of keeping the global temperature from climbing above 1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius. Among substantial difficulties during the negotiations was the refusal of the United States, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait to “welcome” the UN sponsored IPCC Special Report released in October (“welcome” being diplomatic speak for “acknowledge the truth of the basic conclusions of”).
