“How dare you”: Greta Thunberg delivers scathing speech at UN climate summit
A furious 16-year-old has held world leaders accountable for “stealing my dreams and my childhood” as they fail to address the issue of climate change.
Greta Thunberg put on a brave front and gave a speech at the United Nations headquarters that quickly gained worldwide attention.
It came as over 50 global leaders, with the exception of Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and US President Donald Trump, attended the Climate Action Summit in New York on Monday, local time (Tuesday AEST).
The teenage girl may be young, but she travelled from the UK in a zero-emissions yacht to convey her anger to the politicians seated in front of her.
Thunberg said young people would forever hold world leaders accountable if they failed to keep global temperature rise below 1.5 degrees.
Greta Thunberg to world leaders at the U.N. climate summit: “You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words” https://t.co/vhK7qb7Dgb pic.twitter.com/kArrseEu9f
— TIME (@TIME) 23 September 2019
“This is all wrong,” she said. “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.”
She then added: “If you choose to fail us, I say we will never forgive you.”
Leaders who spoke at the summit included New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emannuel Macron, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Foreign Minister Marise Payne was there on behalf of Australia but did not speak.
The US President sat in the audience for a brief period of time before attending a session on religious freedom.