Young people have to grow up "too fast" in the face of climate fears Thunberg March 11, 2024

Greta Thunberg started her "school strike for the climate" in Sweden five years ago (Thibaud MORITZ)

By AFP - Agence France Presse

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg said on Monday that young people like her had to grow up "too fast" to solve a climate crisis caused by previous generations.

Thunberg denounced politicians' inaction on climate change and made the comments just days before the fifth anniversary of a global youth climate protest involving over a million people.

On Monday, she sat on the steps of the Swedish parliament, blocking the main entrance and protesting along with around 10 other youth activists with a banner reading "Climate Justice Now".

"We are far too many young people who have grown up in the climate movement and who have had to grow up far too fast to take responsibility and try to clean up after the older generations," Thunberg told AFP.

"The Swedish government and all the other governments in the world are not treating the climate crisis like a crisis at all."

"They are still allowing short-term economic gains to take precedence over human lives and the planet," she said, adding that she and her fellow campaigners "feel a bit like broken records, we have repeated the same message over and over again."

The TT news agency reported that the politicians were still able to get into parliament through side entrances.

When Thunberg began sitting outside the Swedish parliament with her "School Strike for the Climate" sign in August 2018, she was an anonymous teenager in a world that saw her as silently dying.

Five years later, Thunberg's Fridays for Future movement and the subsequent worldwide marches have had a global impact, political scientist Joost de Moor told AFP in October.

"It has raised awareness of the issue," he said.

It has also "contributed to an increased legitimacy of pro-climate policies, which in turn has made it easier for willing politicians to act on this issue," he said, citing the example of Frans Timmermans, the former EU climate commissioner responsible for the Green Deal currently under discussion in the EU.

Nevertheless, as Greta Thunberg herself has said on several occasions, climate policy falls far short of what climate scientists believe is necessary," said de Moor.

A report by the European Environment Agency (EEA) warned on Monday of "catastrophic" consequences if Europe does not take urgent action to adapt to the risks of climate change.

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