page_title: Greta Thunberg
hierarchical_section_title: Greta Thunberg
caption_attribution_description: English: Climate activist Greta Thunberg discussed EU plans to tackle the climate emergency with Parliament’s environment committee on Wednesday 4 March. The climate activist was at the Parliament to discuss the Climate Law, a proposal seeking to commit the EU to carbon neutrality by 2050. Addressing the committee, Thunberg criticised the proposal as insufficient: “The EU must lead the way. You have the moral obligation to do so and you have a unique economical and political opportunity to become a real climate leader. You, yourselves, declared that we are in a climate and environment emergency. You said this was an existential threat. Now you must prove that you mean it.” It is vital to follow “ a science-based pathway”. “Anything else is surrender,” she said. “This climate law is surrender because nature doesn’t bargain and you cannot make deals with physics.” Introducing her, environment committee chair Pascal Canfin said: “Everyone has their role to play in this. I am deeply convinced that what we need is the energy of our young people. No society is transformed, no society can respond to the kind of challenges we face on climate if we do not take on board the energy coming from our young people. And you embody that.” Read more: &lt;a href="https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/20200227STO73520/greta-thunberg-urges-meps-to-show-climate-leadership" rel="noreferrer nofollow"&gt;www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/20200227...&lt;/a&gt; This photo is free to use under Creative Commons license CC-BY-4.0 and must be credited: "CC-BY-4.0: © European Union 2020 – Source: EP". (&lt;a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" rel="noreferrer nofollow"&gt;creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/&lt;/a&gt;) No model release form if applicable. For bigger HR files please contact: webcom-flickr(AT)europarl.europa.eu Deutsch: Greta Thunberg spricht auf einer Sitzung des Umweltausschusses des Europäischen Parlaments am 3. März 2020
context_page_description: Greta Tintin Eleonora Ernman Thunberg is a Swedish environmental activist who has gained international recognition for promoting the view that humanity is facing an existential crisis arising from climate change. Thunberg is known for her youth and her straightforward speaking manner, both in public and to political leaders and assemblies, in which she criticises world leaders for their failure to take sufficient action to address the climate crisis.
  Thunberg's activism started after convincing her parents to adopt several lifestyle choices to reduce their own carbon footprint. In August 2018, at age 15, she started spending her school days outside the Swedish parliament to call for stronger action on climate change by holding up a sign reading Skolstrejk för klimatet. Soon, other students engaged in similar protests in their own communities. Together, they organised a school climate strike movement under the name Fridays for Future. After Thunberg addressed the 2018 United Nations Climate Change Conference, student strikes took place every week somewhere in the world. In 2019, there were multiple coordinated multi-city protests involving over a million students each.
context_section_description: Greta Tintin Eleonora Ernman Thunberg (Swedish: [ˈɡrêːta ˈtʉ̂ːnbærj] (listen); born 3 January 2003) is a Swedish environmental activist who has gained international recognition for promoting the view that humanity is facing an existential crisis arising from climate change. Thunberg is known for her youth and her straightforward speaking manner, both in public and to political leaders and assemblies, in which she criticises world leaders for their failure to take sufficient action to address the climate crisis.
  Thunberg's activism started after convincing her parents to adopt several lifestyle choices to reduce their own carbon footprint. In August 2018, at age 15, she started spending her school days outside the Swedish parliament to call for stronger action on climate change by holding up a sign reading Skolstrejk för klimatet (School strike for climate). Soon, other students engaged in similar protests in their own communities. Together, they organised a school climate strike movement under the name Fridays for Future. After Thunberg addressed the 2018 United Nations Climate Change Conference, student strikes took place every week somewhere in the world. In 2019, there were multiple coordinated multi-city protests involving over a million students each. To avoid flying, Thunberg sailed to North America where she attended the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit. Her speech there, in which she exclaimed "how dare you", was widely taken up by the press and incorporated into music.
  Her sudden rise to world fame has made her both a leader and a target for critics. Her influence on the world stage has been described by The Guardian and other newspapers as the "Greta effect".  She has received numerous honours and awards including: honorary Fellowship of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society; Time magazine's 100 most influential people and the youngest Time Person of the Year; inclusion in the Forbes list of The World's 100 Most Powerful Women (2019) and two consecutive nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize (2019 and 2020).
caption: Thunberg in March 2020
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