In an op-ed published days before political and business leaders meet at the annual Davos World Economic Forum in Switzerland, 17-year-old climate change activist Greta Thunberg blasted “older generations” for not moving quickly to meet her demands for nation’s to “completely divest from fossil fuels.”
“Young people are being let down by older generations and those in power,” wrote the Swedish teenager in the Guardian. “To some it may seem like we are asking for a lot. But this is just the very minimum of effort needed to start the rapid sustainable transition. The fact that this still — in 2020 — hasn’t been done already is, quite frankly, a disgrace.”
Thunberg apologized in December after stating that world leaders should be put “against the wall” if they refuse to meet her demands on environmental policy.
“We demand that at this year’s 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,” added Thunberg.
Time magazine named Thunberg their “Person of the Year” in 2019, and the teenager came in second to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in Nobel Peace Prize voting last year. Thunberg recently got into a Twitter spat with rocker Meat Loaf after the Texas singer called her “brainwashed.”
Thunberg posted a link to her opinion piece on Twitter Friday, warning adults not to “twist” her words because child climate activists “live under constant threat just for communicating the situation we are in.”
And please remember, many of us who have signed this are children, many of us live under constant threat just for communicating the situation we are in. So do not make up your own quotes or twist our words. Quote what we actually say instead.
— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) January 10, 2020
