Swedish 16-year-old climate activist brings youth protest to Paris
Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg brought her class-boycott campaign to Paris on Friday, hoping to encourage more French students to hit the streets with demands for bold efforts to combat climate change. A crowd of around 1,000 people took part in the protest in central Paris, one of dozens planned in cities across Europe as part of her “Fridays For Future” movement. The Friday protests that the 16-year-old Swede launched in August have gained little traction so far in France, where the landmark COP21 international accord on cutting emissions was signed in 2015.
“I never thought it would get so big and I think it’s amazing,” she said of her campaign, speaking to journalists ahead of the march. “We, children, we should not have to do this, adults should be taking responsibility.”
Greta Thunberg
Thunberg’s determined campaign to hold adults accountable for looming climate change consequences has gained global resonance since she began skipping class for weekly Friday protests in Stockholm six months ago. She made global headlines in December with a strong-willed speech at a U.N. climate meeting in Poland, and last month took her message to the top corporate echelons at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
“You are not mature enough to tell it like it is. Even that burden you leave to us children,” Thunberg told world leaders in Poland.
“You say you love your children above all else, and yet you are stealing their future in front of their very eyes … You have run out of excuses and we have run out of time.”
Read the full article here: https://theglobepost.com/2019/02/22/greta-thunberg-paris/
