The 16-year-old activist arrived in Madrid last Friday, following a three-week sailing trip across the Atlantic, because she has sworn off flying due to the threat it poses for the environment
Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg announced to 420 reporters that she is tired of the relentless media attention she is getting.
The 16-year-old activist arrived in Madrid last Friday, following a three-week sailing trip across the Atlantic, because she has sworn off flying due to the threat it poses for the environment.
Greta was joined by other activists at an event at La Casa Encendida where the COP25 United Nations climate change conference is being held.
Speaking alongside prominent German activist Luisa Neubauer at a UN climate meeting in Madrid today, Thunberg said their stories ‘have been told over and over again.’
‘There is no need to listen to us anymore,’ she said.
‘It is people especially from the global south, especially from indigenous communities, who need to tell their stories,’ she said before handing the mic to young activists from the United States, the Philippines, Russia, Uganda, Chile and the Marshall Islands.
Speaking alongside prominent German activist Luisa Neubauer (pictured together) at a UN climate meeting in Madrid today, Thunberg said their stories ‘have been told over and over again’
Climate activist Greta Thunberg, centre, stands with other young activists at the COP25 Climate summit in Madrid today
The 420 journalists there mainly directed their questions to Ms Thunberg, prompting her to say: ‘They shouldn’t listen to me before anyone else. I am a small part of a very big movement.’
She told Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet: ‘It’s absurd. I don’t like to be the centre of attention all the time, but it’s a positive thing.
She added: ‘There is no need to listen to us anymore’. Greta is pictured leaving the Complutense University of Madrid after attending a climate change meeting there yesterday
She told Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet: ‘It’s absurd. I don’t like to be the centre of attention all the time, but it’s a positive thing’
‘As long as the press writes about me, they are also writing about the climate crisis.’
The teenager later took part in a climate march attended by roughly 25,000 people.
Two were arrested and six police officers were injured during the march, which also saw Spanish actor Javier Bardem call the Mayor of Madrid ‘stupid’ for his opinions on climate change.
The actor has since apologised.
Ms Thunberg was then forced to leave early for security reasons and fellow activists from her Fridays for Future movement said she was upset that she was being followed so much.
Teenage climate activist Great Thunberg pictured arriving at a climate change protest march in Madrid, Spain, following a summit that she refused to fly to because she is worried about the environment
Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg today told a panel at a UN climate summit that the movement is ‘getting bigger and bigger’ but ‘of course that does not translate into political action’. Ms Thunberg made the comments to a panel in Madrid where she arrived on Friday clutching her famous ‘school strike for climate’ banner as she joined thousands of other young people in a march to demand world leaders take real action against climate change
Yesterday she turned up to a meeting at Madrid’s Complutense University wearing a hooded sweatshirt that covered her face as she prepared the agenda for this week.
She chose the university as the meeting place because hundreds of other environmental groups meet there and it is informally referred to as the HQ of the ‘counter-summit’.
She reportedly said she wanted a secondary role in two upcoming meetings this week – today at the COP25 summit and on Wednesday when she is set to meet representatives of the climate movement from Chile and Spain with Harrison Ford.
The Spanish spokesman for Fridays for Future told El Pais: ‘She gets really stressed out with all the media pressure.
‘She feels more comfortable in safe spaces.’
Greta Thunberg arrives in Madrid clutching her famous ‘climate strike’ protest sign as she prepares to lead marchers outside a UN conference taking place in the city
Ms Thunberg is reportedly unlikely to stay until the last day of the summit on Friday and is anxious to get back to Stockholm to be with her mother.
It was Thunberg’s first official appearance at the meeting of nearly 200 states tasked with fleshing out the rules of the 2015 Paris Agreement on limiting global temperature rises.
The panel took it in turns to make statements.
Greta Thunberg, Sweden:
‘(Indigenous peoples’) rights are being violated across the world and they are also among the ones being hit the most and the quickest by the climate and environmental emergency.’
Angela Valenzuela, Chile:
‘While countries congratulate each other for their weak commitments the world is literally burning out.’
‘Instead of talking about how to transition from fossil fuels, COP25 is focused on finding elaborate ways for rich industrialised countries to be able to carry on polluting while pretending not to.’
‘As we know well in Chile, neoliberalism is a death cult. As we know from past attempts, the market will not save us from the climate crisis.’
Carlon Zackhras, Marshall Islands:
‘We have been told if we want to stay in our islands we have to adapt and elevate with migration as the only plan B.’
‘We are having to deal with issues we did not create.’
‘My home is only two metres above water. With the threat of climate change we lose two metres of our culture.’
Nakabuye Hilda Flavia, Uganda:
‘It a bit reminds me of the rampant racism and apartheid my ancestors endured. We are suffering severe effects of climate change, as if coming from the global south is a mortal sin, with no or very little action from developing countries.’
‘Which type of storm or flavour of floods must Africa taste for us to get climate justice.’
‘Developed countries must be ashamed of themselves given the amount of carbon they emit compared to what Africa is emitting. We almost emit nothing but we are suffering the most.’
Rose Whipple, Santee Dakota, Ho-Chunk, Winnebago, USA:
‘The climate crisis is a spiritual crisis for our entire world. Our solutions must weave science and spirituality and traditional ecological knowledge with technology.’
‘Our movements must be bigger than recycling and braver than holding signs.’
‘It is up to each and every one of us to build movements that centre the rights of indigenous peoples, healing and justice for the next seven generations.