<\/p>\n
Greta Thunberg says that teenagers have been \u201cbetrayed\u201d by those in power.<\/p>\n
The 19-year-old activist \u2013 who became known around the world when she staged regular school strikes outside the Swedish Parliament in 2018 to protest against climate change and has gone on to become a figurehead of the movement \u2013 recently announced her decision to avoid COP27 this month in Egypt, having accused the United Nations of \u201cgreen-washing\u201d their annual summit. But when asked how she felt about UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak also choosing to skip the event, she noted that it was a sign of government failure.<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cAll these individual cases have many different reasons why they made these decisions, so of course we shouldn\u2019t be focussing ourselves blindly to just one example.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe people in power do not really prioritise the climate crisis and have proven time and time again that their priorities are somewhere else entirely, they would rather stay in power and serve the forces of greed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Greta insisted people needed to keep \u201cdemanding this change\u201d.<\/p>\n
She continued: \u201cThe change is going to come from the outside when enough people are demanding this change, because they are most likely going to do what they can, as long as they can get away with it. So we have to make sure that they do not get away with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, she admitted she goes for \u201clong walks\u201d to \u201cclear her head\u201d and deal with the idea of being a frontrunner in the campaign.<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cI usually go for very, very long walks, to try to clear my head. It shouldn\u2019t have to be like this, this responsibility shouldn\u2019t have to fall on teenagers at all. The fact that there are young people, mostly, who have to take up this fight is a sign of betrayal and failure from those in power.\u201d<\/p>\n
Greta also explained that there has been a \u201cdifference\u201d in activism since her rise to fame because \u201cmillions\u201d have joined her in protest, but claimed that the action taken has been \u201cnot nearly\u201d enough and we need \u201ceveryone\u201d to play a part in managing the crisis.<\/p>\n
Speaking on UK TV show \u2018This Morning\u2019 on ITV, she said: \u201cYou could look at it in a way that emissions are still on the rise and we are speeding in the wrong direction. We are still expanding fossil fuels for infrastructure and so on. There is no sense of urgency whatsoever. No one is acting if we are in a crisis. But on the other hand, of course, we have had millions of people flooding the streets and demanding action.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, it depends on how you see it. Of course, there has been a difference but not nearly enough. It\u2019s very difficult to describe. We never thought that it would be possible to do anything like that. In the beginning, it was just me, and then it was a handful of others \u2013 schoolchildren.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just thought that since we had the opportunity to do something, it was our moral duty to go out and act. Someone needed to take action so we just did it. We didn\u2019t count on any consequences or so on, we just did it.\u201d<\/p>\n