STOCKHOLM — Four years after launching her
“School Strike for the Climate”, Swedish activist
Greta Thunberg is ready to
pass the baton to those on the front lines of climate change, she said in an
interview on Monday.
اضافة اعلان
“We should also listen to reports and experiences
from people who are most affected by the climate crisis. It’s time to hand over
the megaphone to those who actually have stories to tell,” the 19-year-old told
Swedish news agency TT.
After urging the public in recent years to “listen
to the science”, Thunberg said the world now needed “new perspectives”.
In the past four years, Thunberg’s one-person strike
outside the Swedish parliament has evolved into to a massive global movement
engaging millions of youths and unleashing a torrent of debate on the dangers
of climate change.
Thunberg said she initially believed an urgent
debate on the climate was needed to save the world for future generations.
But over time, she said, she has come to understand
that the climate crisis is already having devastating consequences on people’s
lives.
“So it becomes even more hypocritical when people in
Sweden for example say that we have time to adapt and shouldn’t fear what will
happen in the future”, she said.
Thunberg has previously said she would skip the
COP27 talks starting Monday in
Sharm El-Sheik, slamming it as a forum for
“greenwashing”.
She told TT her talks with world leaders have left
her pessimistic about their ability to make progress on the issue.
“Some of the things world leaders and heads of state
have said when the microphone is off are hard to believe when you tell people,”
she said.
“Like, ‘If I had known what we were agreeing to when
we signed the Paris Agreement I would never have signed,’ or ‘You kids are more
knowledgeable in this area than I am’,” she said. “The lack of knowledge among
the world’s most powerful people is shocking”.
Thunberg, who is in her final year of high school in
Stockholm, said meanwhile she has not yet decided what she will do after she
graduates.
“We’ll see. If I had to choose today, I would choose
to continue my studies. Preferably something that has to do with social issues”,
she said.
Read more Lifestyle
Jordan News