How Greta Thunberg took the news of being named TIME's Person of the Year
Climate change activist Greta Thunberg has been named TIME Magazine’s youngest ever Person of the Year.
She acknowledged the honour on her Instagram, saying:
“Wow, this is unbelievable! I share this great honour with everyone in the FridaysForFuture movement and climate activists everywhere.”
Naturally, the Swedish teen hasn’t let the global honour disrupt the work that she is known for and headed straight to the United Nation’s COP25 climate talks in Madrid.
It was here that she demanded once again that world leaders pay attention to the world’s “climate emergency”.
Thunberg commanded that global businesses and political leaders have to stop looking for loopholes for their countries’ actions.
"A year and a half ago I didn't speak to anyone unless I really had to. But then I found a reason to speak," she told the talks in Madrid, according to MSN.
"Since then I've given many speeches and learned that when you talk in public you should start with something personal or emotional to get everyone's attention.
"But today I will not do that because then those phrases are all that people focus on. They don't remember the facts - the very reason why I said those things in the first place.
"We no longer have time to leave out the science. For about a year, I have been constantly talking about or rapidly declining carbon budgets over and over again.
"But since that is still being ignored, I will just keep repeating it."
The 16-year-old then took aim at global leaders saying that they need to face up to the ambition that is required to protect the world from climate change.
"The real danger is when politicians and CEOs are making it look like real action is happening, when in fact almost nothing is being done, apart from clever accounting and creative PR," she said in the speech.
"Finding holistic solutions is what the COP should be all about, but instead it seems to have turned into some kind of opportunity for countries to negotiate loopholes and to avoid raising their ambition," she added.