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Read climate activist Greta Thunberg’s speech to the UN

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg chastised world leaders Monday for failing younger generations by not taking sufficient steps to stop climate change.

“You have stolen my childhood and my dreams with your empty words,” Thunberg said at the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York.

Thunberg traveled to the U.S. by sailboat last month so she could appear at the summit. She and other youth activists led international climate strikes on Friday in an attempt to garner awareness ahead of the UN’s meeting of political and business leaders.

Read Greta Thunberg’s speech below:

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’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 fairytales 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? You say you hear us and that you understand the urgency, but no matter how sad and angry I am, I do not want to believe that. Because 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 ten years only gives us a 50 percent chance of staying below 1.5 degrees and the risk of setting up 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 percent risk is simply not acceptable to us. We who have to live with the consequences. To have a 67 percent chance of staying below the 1.5 degree of temperature rise, the best odds given by the IPCC, the world had 420 gigatons of CO2 left to emit back on January 1, 2018.

Today that figure is already down to less than 350 gigatons. 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 that entire budget will be gone is less than 8 and a half 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.

You are failing us, but 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.

Gretchen Frazee is a Senior Coordinating Broadcast Producer for the PBS NewsHour.

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'How dare you': Transcript of Greta Thunberg's UN climate speech

Teenage activist denounces 'empty words' and lack of concrete solutions

Swedish teenage activist Greta Thunberg caused a stir at the United Nations on Monday with her blistering criticism of world leaders' inaction on climate change. The following is an edited transcript of her remarks.

My message is that we'll be watching you. 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!

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Climate activist Greta Thunberg tells U.N. climate summit: "You have stolen my dreams"

Updated on: September 24, 2019 / 4:47 AM EDT / CBS/AP

Climate activist Greta Thunberg spoke at the United Nations Climate Action Summit on Monday, where she scolded world leaders for failing to address climate change . The 16-year-old has become one of the leading voices for a generation confronting the consequences of a warmer planet.

"People are suffering. People are dying and dying ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is the money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth," she said Monday, as she fought back tears. "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."

Late Monday night, President Trump took to Twitter, citing the first half of that statement then saying Thunberg "seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!"

Thunberg  recently celebrated  the one-year anniversary of the start of her  climate change  movement. Last August, she began striking by herself outside the Swedish parliament, and soon, students around the world began walking out of school, demanding action from their governments. She's been called "the voice of the planet," and has even been  nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize .

Greta Thunberg at U.N.: "You are still not mature enough to tell it like it is. You are failing us. Young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you." https://t.co/5ZPcsQ1Bbr pic.twitter.com/58gwYMqBQV — CBS News (@CBSNews) September 23, 2019

"This is all wrong. I shouldn't be up here," said Thunberg, whose lone protest culminated in Friday's global climate strikes . "I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you have come to us young people for hope. How dare you." 

She told the U.N. that even the strictest emission cuts being talked about only gives the world a 50% chance of limiting future warming to another 0.4 degrees Celsius (0.72 degrees Fahrenheit) from now, which is a global goal. Those odds are not good enough, she said.

"We will not let you get away with this," Thunberg said. "Right now is where we draw the line."

Environmentalists have grown increasingly alarmed over  warming trends  that have exceeded scientists' models. For instance, a climate study in January showed the world's oceans are warming significantly faster than previously thought. Since 1970, the ocean has warmed 40% more than previous estimates.

The U.N. noted on its  website  that global emissions "are reaching record levels and show no sign of peaking," and that the last four years were the the hottest recorded." And that change, the U.N. said, is beginning to have a "life-threatening impact" as it brings more air pollution, heatwaves and greater risk to food security. 

An emotional Thunberg sat in front of the General Assembly and plainly told those in attendance, "You have stolen my dreams."

"How dare you. You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words," she said. "You say you hear us and that you understand the urgency. But no matter how sad and angry I am, I do not want to believe that, because if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil and that I refuse to believe."

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Read Greta Thunberg’s Full U.N. Climate Action Summit Speech

This piece has been published as part of Slate’s partnership with Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 250 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story.

Swedish activist Greta Thunberg sailed across the Atlantic in a carbon-neutral boat to attend the United Nation’s Climate Action Summit in New York City. On Monday, she delivered a speech that helps explain exactly why the 16-year-old activist has managed to capture the world’s attention .

My message is that we’ll be watching you.

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’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? You say you hear us and that you understand the urgency. But no matter how sad and angry I am, I do not want to believe that. Because 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 percent 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 CO 2 out of the air with technologies that barely exist.

So a 50 percent risk is simply not acceptable to us—we who have to live with the consequences. To have a 67 percent chance of staying below a 1.5 degree global temperature rise—the best odds given by the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change]—the world had 420 gigatons of CO 2 left to emit back on Jan. 1, 2018. Today that figure is already down to less than 350 gigatons.

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 CO 2 budget will be entirely gone within less than 8½ 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.

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.

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“Our House Is Still on Fire”: Full Speech by Greta Thunberg at World Economic Forum in Davos

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• Greta Thunberg teenage Swedish climate activist. She was named Time magazine’s Person of the Year for 2019.

The 17-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg delivered a speech Tuesday to the world leaders and global elite gathered in Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum, one year after she first condemned the forum for its inaction on climate change.

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AMY GOODMAN : We end today’s show with the words of a 17-year-old: Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg. She just turned 17 in the last weeks. She addressed world leaders today at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

GRETA THUNBERG : One year ago, I came to Davos and told you that our house is on fire. I said I wanted you to panic. I’ve been warned that telling people to panic about the climate crisis is a very dangerous thing to do. But don’t worry. It’s fine. Trust me. I’ve done this before. And I can assure you: It doesn’t lead to anything.

And for the record, when we children tell you to panic, we’re not telling you to go on like before. We’re not telling you to rely on technologies that don’t even exist today at scale and that science says perhaps never will. We are not telling you to keep talking about reaching net zero emissions or carbon neutrality by cheating and fiddling around with numbers. We’re not telling you to offset your emissions by just paying someone else to plant trees in places like Africa, while at the same time forests like the Amazon are being slaughtered at an infinitely higher rate. Planting trees is good, of course, but it’s nowhere near enough of what is needed, and it cannot replace real mitigation and rewilding nature.

And let’s be clear: We don’t need a low-carbon economy. We don’t need to lower emissions. Our emissions have to stop, if we are to have a chance to stay below the 1.5-degree target. And until we have the technologies that at scale can put our emissions to minus, then we must forget about net zero. We need real zero, because distant net-zero emission targets will mean absolutely nothing if we just continue to ignore the carbon dioxide budget that applies for today, not distant future dates. If high emissions continue like now even for a few years, that remaining budget will soon be completely used up.

The fact that the U.S.A. is leaving the Paris accord seemed to outrage and worry everyone. And it should. But the fact that we are all about to fail the commitments you signed up for in the Paris Agreement doesn’t seem to bother the people in power even the least. Any plan or policy of yours that doesn’t include radical emission cuts at the source starting today is completely insufficient for meeting the 1.5- or well below 2-degree commitments of the Paris Agreement.

And again, this is not about right or left. We couldn’t care less about your party politics. From a sustainability perspective, the right, the left, as well as the center, have all failed. No political ideology or economic structure has been able to tackle the climate and environmental emergency and create a cohesive and sustainable world, because that world, in case you haven’t noticed, is currently on fire.

You say children shouldn’t worry. You say, “Just leave this to us. We will fix this. We promise we won’t let you down. Don’t be so pessimistic.” And then nothing. Silence. Or something worse than silence: empty words and promises which give the impression that sufficient action is being taken.

All the solutions are obviously not available within today’s societies, nor do we have the time to wait for new technological solutions to become available to start drastically reducing our emissions. So, of course, the transition isn’t going to be easy. It will be hard. And unless we start facing this now, together, with all cards on the table, we won’t be able to solve this in time.

In the days running up to the 50th anniversary of the World Economic Forum, I joined a group of climate activists demanding that you, the world’s most powerful and influential business and political leaders, begin to take the action needed. We demand, at this year’s World Economic Forum, participants from all companies, banks, institutions and governments immediately halt all investments in fossil fuel exploration and extraction, immediately end all fossil fuel subsidies and immediately and completely divest from fossil fuels. We don’t want these things done by 2050 or 2030 or even 2021; we want this done now.

It may seem like we are asking for a lot, and you will of course say that we are naive. But this is just the very minimum amount of effort that is needed to start the rapid sustainable transition. So, either you do this, or you’re going to have to explain to your children why you are giving up on the 1.5-degree target — giving up without even trying.

Well, I’m here to tell you that, unlike you, my generation will not give up without a fight. The facts are clear, but they are still too uncomfortable for you to address. You just leave it, because you just think it’s too depressing and people will give up. But people will not give up. You are the ones who are giving up. Last week, I met with Polish coal miners who lost their jobs because their mine was closed. And even they had not given up. On the contrary, they seem to understand the fact that we need to change more than you do.

I wonder: What will you tell your children was the reason to fail and leave them facing a climate chaos that you knowingly brought upon them? That it seemed so bad for the economy that we decided to resign the idea of securing future living conditions without even trying?

Our house is still on fire. Your inaction is fueling the flames by the hour. And we are telling you to act as if you loved your children above all else. Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN : Seventeen-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg addressing world leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. She spoke just after President Trump spoke at the gathering, touting the economy but not talking about the climate crisis, which is the focus of the World Economic Forum in Davos. That does it for our show. We’ll post her whole speech online at democracynow.org.

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‘You Have Stolen My Dreams and My Childhood’: Greta Thunberg Gives Powerful Speech at UN Climate Summit

I n an emotional speech at the United Nations during the Climate Action Summit on Monday, the 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg appealed to world leaders about the grave need to stop the effects of climate change.

“You all come to us young people for hope. How dare you?” she said. “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.”

Thunberg grew tearful, as she continued to condemn what she sees as the lack of action on part of leaders around the world to halt climate change. “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?”

The 2019 Climate Action Summit kicked off at the UN on Monday, where world leaders gathered to discuss serious strategies to mitigate climate change. Representatives of participating nations were told by U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres to come up with “concrete, realistic plans” to further their commitments to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and get to net zero emissions by 2050.

Thunberg cited more than 30 years of scientific evidence showing the consequences of a perpetually warming globe and delivered searing criticism of politicians who were aware of the science, but still did nothing.

“You say you hear us and that you understand the urgency. But no matter how sad and angry I am, I do not want to believe that,” she said. “Because if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil, and that I refuse to believe.”

Thunberg spoke at the UN following her appearance at the Global Climate Strike in New York City on Friday where she addressed the crowd of protestors , saying, “Our house is on fire. We will do everything in our power to stop this crisis from getting worse.”

Speaking to the world leaders at the climate summit Monday, Thunberg echoed her earlier message and offered a warning. “You are failing us. But 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.”

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“we’ll be watching you”: thunberg’s un speech.

NPR provided the transcript of Thunberg’s remarks at the UN Climate Summit:  

“My message is that we’ll be watching you.

“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’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.

“You say you hear us and that you understand the urgency. But no matter how sad and angry I am, I do not want to believe that. Because 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.

“To have a 67% chance of staying below a 1.5 degrees global temperature rise – the best odds given by the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] – the world had 420 gigatons of CO2 left to emit back on Jan. 1st, 2018. Today that figure is already down to less than 350 gigatons.

“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.

“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.

“Thank you.”

Climate Strike Spans Continents: Financial Times

Scientists support climate strike: helsinki times.

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Apr 22, 2021

Greta Thunberg Testimony Speech on Climate Crisis Transcript Earth Day 2021

Activist Greta Thunberg testified before the U.S. House of Representatives on climate change on Earth Day 2021. Read the transcript of her speech remarks here.

Transcribe Your Own Content Try Rev and save time transcribing, captioning, and subtitling.

Speaker 1: ( 00:00 ) Now I went to recognize Ms. Thunberg. You’re now recognized for your testimony.

Greta Thunberg: ( 00:09 ) Thank you. And first of all, thank you for inviting me and for holding this hearing. I don’t represent any financial or political interests. I’m not a lobbyist, so I can’t negotiate, make deals, or compromise. I have nothing to offer you nor am I a scientist. All I can do is to urge you to listen to and act on the science and to use your common sense. And I’m not even going to explain why we need to make real drastic changes and dramatically lower our emissions in line with the overall current best available science. It is the year 2021. The fact that we are still having this discussion, and even more that we are still subsidizing fossil fuels directly or indirectly using taxpayer money is a disgrace. It is a clear proof that we have not understood the climate emergency at all.

Greta Thunberg: ( 01:14 ) If you compare the current so-called climate policies to the overall current best available science, you clearly see that there’s a huge gap. The gap between what we are doing and what actually needs to be done in order to stay below the 1.5 degrees Celsius targets is widening by the second. And the simple fact, an uncomfortable fact is that if we are to live up to our promises and commitments in the Paris Agreement, we have to end fossil fuel subsidies, stop new exploration and extraction, completely divest from fossil fuels, and keep the carbon in the ground now. Especially the US taking into account the fact that it is the biggest emitter in history. And just to be clear, that is not my opinion. It is what the science clearly shows.

Greta Thunberg: ( 02:14 ) And yet this is just the very minimum amount of effort that is needed to start the rapid sustainable transition. And it may seem like we are asking for a lot and you will, of course, say that we are naive, and that’s fine, but at least we are not so naive that we believe things will be sold through countries and companies making vague, distant, insufficient targets without any real pressure from the media and the general public. So either you do this or you’re going to have to start explain to your children and the most effective people why you are surrendering on the 1.5 degree target, given up without even trying.

Greta Thunberg: ( 03:01 ) Well, what I’m here to say is that unlike you, my generation will not give up without the fight. And to be honest, I don’t believe for a second that you will actually do this. The climate crisis doesn’t exist in the public debate today. And since it doesn’t really exist and the general level of awareness is so absurdly low, you will still get away with continuing to contribute to the destruction of presence and future living conditions.

Greta Thunberg: ( 03:35 ) And I know I’m not the one who supposed to ask questions here, but there is something I really do wonder. How long do you honestly believe that people in power like you will get away with it? How long do you think you can continue to ignore the climate crisis, the global aspect of equity and historic emissions without being held accountable?

Greta Thunberg: ( 04:01 ) You get away with it now, but sooner or later, people are going to realize what you have been doing all this time. That’s inevitable. You still have time to do the right thing and to save your legacies, but that window of time is not going to last for long. What happens then? We, the young people, are the ones who are going to write about you in the history books. We are the ones who get to decide how you will be remembered. So my advice for you is to choose wisely. Thank you.

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School strike for climate - save the world by changing the rules | Greta Thunberg | TEDxStockholm

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Climate scientists say Greta Thunberg's efforts are building real momentum

Environmental activist Greta Thunberg’s searing address at the United Nations earlier this week earned enthusiastic praise from climate researchers, with many saying that the 16-year-old has found ways to raise awareness of climate science, galvanize support and resonate with people in ways that they have struggled to for decades.

“Speaking as a climate change scientist who has been working on this issue for 20 years and saying the same thing for 20 years, she is getting people to listen, which we have failed to do,” said Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change & Development in Bangladesh.

“I thought it was the most powerful speech I’ve ever seen.”

Sally Benson, co-director of the Precourt Institute for Energy at Stanford University, applauded Thunberg’s emotional remarks and her efforts to mobilize young people to demand action on climate change.

“She has been a catalytic leader,” Benson said. “We’re seeing more grassroots action, and she’s creating a movement where young people are pushing communities, cities, states and corporations and saying, ‘we’re not going to wait.’”

News How teen Greta Thunberg went from solitary climate change protester to icon

Thunberg’s impassioned statement at the U.N. chided world leaders for not doing enough to address climate change and emphasized the urgency of the global situation, referring often to figures from a seminal report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in October 2018 on the impact of 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming .

The report stated that the planet has already warmed by 1 degree Celsius since the 19th century, and used 1.5 degrees as a threshold beyond which the effects of climate change, such as melting ice, extreme heat and sea-level rise, become life-threatening for tens of millions of people around the world.

“The popular idea of cutting our emissions in half in 10 years only gives us a 50 percent chance of staying below 1.5 degrees and the risk of setting off irreversible chain reactions beyond human control,” Thunberg said.

But even the possibility of reducing global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions so drastically by 2030 is fast becoming impractical, according to Simon Donner, a climatologist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.

“Mathematically and technically, it is possible, but it’s not realistic,” Donner said. “To reduce emissions that sharply in what is now only a 10-year period would take enormous changes in countries around the world.”

Science As their home melts, Greenlanders confront the fallout of climate change

Recent trends have demonstrated how challenging it is to even keep carbon emissions level. A report released last year by the Global Carbon Project , formed by an international consortium of climate researchers, stated that global carbon emissions hit a record high in 2018. After a period of stability from 2014 to 2016, global greenhouse gas emissions rose in 2017 and then jumped another 2.7 percent in 2018 to an all-time high of more than 37 billion metric tons.

“The trend is very bad if we want to stay within the 1.5-degree window,” said Michael Mehling, deputy director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

At current emissions levels, the so-called CO2 budget — which calculates how much more carbon dioxide can be released into the atmosphere while limiting warming to below 1.5 degrees Celsius — will likely be used up in about eight years, according to Mehling, a fact echoed by Thunberg in her speech to the U.N.

But even if some of these challenges seem insurmountable, Donner said it’s important for people to not feel disheartened, because incremental changes can make a big difference.

“The real message of the IPCC report last year is that every action counts,” he said. “The world is not going to end in 2030, even if we fail to avoid 1.5 degrees of warming. But we should still do the best we can, because the more we reduce emissions, the less the planet will warm and the less people will suffer.”

Nathan Hultman, director of the Center for Global Sustainability at the University of Maryland, said Thunberg’s U.N. address was particularly effective at conveying the need for urgent action.

“I like that it ruffled feathers,” said Hultman, who worked at the White House on climate and energy policy for the Obama administration from 2014 to 2016. “The statement she made is not the normal kind of statements you hear at U.N. summits. We need to cut through the chummy approaches that happen at the international level and speak truthfully about what we need to do.”

He added that Thunberg’s speech and the climate strike movement that the Swedish teen started in 2018, which on Sept. 20 drew millions to the streets for a “Global Climate Strike,” has sparked what he thinks is real progress on the issue.

“I don’t think we’re grasping at straws — I think we’re seeing some real signs of movement, and that gives me hope,” Hultman said. “We’ve been crossing this bridge for decades and now we’re partially over it, but there’s a lot more bridge to go.”

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Danish police detain activist Greta Thunberg during pro-Palestinian protest

COPENHAGEN – The Danish police on Sept 4 apprehended activist Greta Thunberg at a Copenhagen protest against the war in Gaza and Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, a spokesperson for the student group organising the demonstration said.

Ms Thunberg was later released from detention, according to Danish media reports, and the daily Ekstra Bladet showed video footage of her walking out of a police station.

Six people were detained at the scene at Copenhagen University after some 20 people blocked the entrance to a building and three entered, a police spokesperson told Reuters.

Widely known for her campaign to end man-made climate change, the Swedish-born Ms Thunberg has increasingly taken up the Palestinian cause and said in May that such protests “should be everywhere”.

Video posted by Students Against the Occupation, a pro-Palestinian student group, showed uniformed police officers leading Ms Thunberg and other detainees into a police van while handcuffed or with their hands tied behind their backs.

Ms Thunberg wore a scarf around her shoulders imprinted with the traditional Palestinian keffiyeh pattern, a common symbol among pro-Palestinian demonstrators.

The Copenhagen University may take disciplinary action against enrolled students who took part in the protest, Mr Kristian Cedervall Lauta, pro-rector of education at the university said in an e-mail. Ms Thunberg is not a student at the university. REUTERS

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Greta Thunberg detained and released after Copenhagen protest against Gaza war

Greta thunberg was detained at a copenhagen protest against gaza's war and west bank occupation but was later released..

Copenhagen University considers disciplinary actions

From the cradle: How kids, newborns, and the unborn jump-started South Korea’s historic climate lawsuit

A constitutional court has ruled that south korea can’t just set a carbon neutrality target — it has to have a roadmap to making it real..

Choi Hee-woo was a 20-week-old embryo when he joined a landmark climate lawsuit in South Korea. At the time, his mother was planning to make Choi’s older sibling a plaintiff in a lawsuit that argued the South Korean government had not taken sufficient action against climate change. But when she learned that an unborn child could be party to a lawsuit, she nicknamed the child Woodpecker — because she’d heard the bird’s call when she first learned she was pregnant — and signed him up. The case became known as Woodpecker et al. v. South Korea . 

The now nearly 2-year-old boy is one of more than 250 plaintiffs, of all ages, ensuring that the South Korean government does not wait too long to act on its legal commitment to carbon neutrality. Last week, a constitutional court partially sided with Choi and the other plaintiffs, ordering the country’s legislative body to revise its climate law. In 2021, the South Korean National Assembly passed a law requiring the government to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 35 percent by 2030 and to become carbon neutral by 2050. In response to the law, the government set a goal of reducing carbon emissions by 40 percent by 2030, which the plaintiffs argued was insufficient to protect their fundamental right to life and a clean environment. 

The court, which examines the constitutionality of laws, ruled that the intermediary 2030 goal was adequate — but it ordered the National Assembly to develop additional concrete plans to ensure that progress continues at a robust pace after 2030, in order to meet the 2050 goal of carbon neutrality. The decision is a partial victory for plaintiffs, and it requires the National Assembly to revise the existing climate law by the end of February 2026. 

“The Korean constitutional court is very conservative,” Byung-Joo Lee, an attorney for the plaintiffs, told Grist. “But the court made it very clear that the climate crisis is a scientific and legal fact, and they acknowledged that the state has a duty to protect people from climate change. It’s a clear, constitutional right of the people.”

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The ruling is the first of its kind in Asia and could influence outcomes in Japan and Taiwan , where similar cases are making their way through the courts. Climate lawsuits by young people against state and federal governments around the world have been steadily gaining momentum over the last decade. Earlier this year, the Hawai‘i Department of Transportation entered into a historic settlement with youth plaintiffs who sued the agency for failing to adequately protect their right to a clean environment. Similar cases are pending in Montana, Alaska, Utah, and Virginia . In April, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Switzerland’s limited action on climate change was endangering the lives of a group of women over the age of 64, who argued they were particularly susceptible to heat waves. And in 2021, a German court sided with youth who argued that the country’s greenhouse gas reduction goals were insufficient . 

The ruling by South Korea’s constitutional court is “consistent with other court decisions globally that have found a failure to have either adequate or any mid- or long-term targets violates one form or another of protected rights,” said Michael Burger, executive director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University. The court’s finding that the lack of interim targets is unconstitutional is significant because it ensures that there’s a roadmap for the government to meet its 2050 goal of carbon neutrality. 

“The failure to include [interim goals] can be seen as passing the buck to a generation 20 years down the line,” said Burger. “That’s the problem that the court found with the lack of interim plans, that it puts the burden on some future generation to come up with a solution.”

The lawsuit in South Korea was first filed in 2020 by 19 young people affiliated with Youth 4 Climate Action, a group inspired by Greta Thunberg’s school climate strikes that leads the Korean arm of the movement. When three other similar cases were later filed by other groups, the court consolidated the cases into one, bringing the total number of plaintiffs to 255. About a third of them were children at the time the cases were filed.

“Responding to the climate crisis means reducing its risks, controlling factors that could exacerbate the crisis, and building safety nets to sustain life and society,” said Kim Seo-gyeong, an activist with Youth 4 Climate Action, in a press release. “I look forward to seeing how this constitutional complaint will change the standards for climate response and what transformations it will bring.”   

Burger said the ruling is “likely to inform and influence other judges, especially in the region.” Last month, a group of young people in Japan filed a lawsuit against ten thermal power companies in the country, demanding that the facilities reduce their emissions in line with internationally agreed targets to keep global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). 

“As a significant judicial decision in Asia, the Constitutional Court of South Korea’s decision will have a substantial impact in Japan as well,” said Mie Asaoka, an attorney representing the youth plaintiffs, in a statement. “We are confident that this decision will serve as a powerful catalyst for change in Japan’s judicial landscape.”

Lee, an attorney for the plaintiffs, told Grist that the case has increased awareness about the climate crisis among South Koreans. Since the court has required the National Assembly to revise the climate law, Lee has been urging plaintiffs and climate action groups to begin campaigning lawmakers to enact the most stringent requirements possible.

“Our fight in the constitutional court ended, but our next fight in the Korean Congress is just starting,” said Lee. 

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Where Greta Thunberg does (and doesn't) expect to see action on climate change

Ailsa Chang

Christopher Intagliata

Greta Thunberg says the fight for social justice is the fight for climate justice. picture alliance/dpa/picture alliance via Getty I hide caption

Greta Thunberg says the fight for social justice is the fight for climate justice.

It all started with "skolstrejk för klimatet" – the "school strike for climate," also known as Fridays for Future. At 15 years old, Greta Thunberg began spending her Fridays striking in front of the Swedish Parliament to demand action against climate change.

In less than five years, millions have joined Fridays for Future. Thunberg spoke in front of the United Nations. She became Time magazine's youngest ever person of the year. She was nominated for the Nobel Peace prize four years in a row. By 20 years old, she has become a household name around the world... all while finishing high school.

Thunberg has just published The Climate Book . It's a collection of more than 100 essays from herself, scientists, historians, economists, and journalists diving into various topics sharing the data, realities, and proposed solutions to the ongoing climate crisis.

NPR's Ailsa Chang spoke to Thunberg about her new book, her future, and why she thinks change will come from outside the political world.

Police officers carry Thunberg out of a group of protesters and away from the edge of the Garzweiler II opencast lignite mine in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. picture alliance/dpa/picture alliance via Getty I hide caption

Police officers carry Thunberg out of a group of protesters and away from the edge of the Garzweiler II opencast lignite mine in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Interview highlights

On why she put together this collection of essays

I think what mainly motivated me was that it was so difficult to find a source where you could actually read and go in depth on these issues. Because people often ask me, like, "Where can I read? What can I read? What can I watch? I want to get more engaged with the climate crisis. I want to become an activist. I want to learn. But I don't know where to start." So this is a very good place to start. I think it covers a lot of issues concerning the climate crisis. So it's not just a one-sided story.

On if the United States has stepped up in the way that it needs to

I wouldn't say in the way that it needs to. We might see some improvements in some areas, but still, the U.S. is expanding fossil fuel infrastructure. And to do that at a time right now where countless people are losing their lives and livelihoods in a climate emergency that is just continuing to escalate every day. I think that's very, very irresponsible and it's completely absurd.

On how to overcome the political realities of a divided government

That's exactly the reason why the politicians and the people in power need to start speaking up. Because as it is now, they might not have the votes, they might not have the public support from voters to actually take these measures. And of course, how can we expect that? How can we expect people to demand drastic change in order to safeguard our present and future living conditions if they don't know the reason why those changes are needed.

Right now it's like, saving the climate is seen as an act of tree hugging. It's not being seen as a way to protect our civilization as we know it and to save countless human lives. That is being put against jobs and workers, when it's actually the opposite.

Book Reviews

Greta thunberg's 'the climate book' urges world to keep climate justice out front.

The fight for social justice is the fight for climate justice. We can't have one without the other. We can't put them against each other. And unless people know that – unless people know how bad the situation actually is — they're not going to demand change because they're going to want to keep things the way they are.

I believe that the changes will come from the outside, people demanding this, because we see that when there have been successful campaigns. People are raising these issues in a way [that's] been working then that has also had effects on the policies that are being made and the decisions that are being made.

And then, of course, I think that I'm not the one to tell the U.S. how they should do things when it comes to things like Congress and so on. I think that's more up to the experts and the people there.

On whether she will pursue a career in politics

I really hope not. [laughs] I mean, politics as it is now is very, very toxic. And it doesn't seem like the kind of world I would want to spend my life in. I think that I can do more as a campaigner on the outside.

Thunberg at a Fridays for Future global climate strike in Berlin in 2021. Markus Schreiber/AP hide caption

Thunberg at a Fridays for Future global climate strike in Berlin in 2021.

On her experience as an international celebrity

Of course, I don't think it's what anyone expected or could ever expect. So I guess I just have to use the advantage that that gives me. It gives me a platform [where] I can speak up about things that can impact things, people, etc. But of course, it sends a weird message that we are focusing sometimes on specific individuals rather than the actual problem itself and rather than the people actually suffering the consequences of that problem.

On finishing high school and managing a busy schedule

I don't know, [laughs] to be honest. I don't have an answer to that.

On if it's overwhelming

Maybe yes, overwhelming. But I think what's more is the feeling of doing something that matters. Doing something that has an impact. Something that in the future, I will be able to look back at and say, "I did what I could during this existential crisis when most people were just either looking away or were too busy with their own lives."