Greta your first climate strike was a lonely event a little over a year ago
and in the intervening time you have sparked the interest of millions
literally of children around the globe demanding action for climate change
what's your message to world leaders today my message is that we'll be
watching you
this is all wrong I shouldn't be up here I should be back in school on the other
side of the ocean yet you all come to us young people for hope how dare you you
have stolen my dreams in my childhood with your empty words yet I'm one of the
lucky ones people are suffering people are dying
entire ecosystems are collapsing we are in the beginning of a mass extinction
and all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic
growth how dare you
for more than 30 years the science has been crystal-clear how dare you continue
to look away and come here saying that you're doing enough when the politics
and solutions needed are still nowhere in sight you say you hear us and that
you understand the urgency but no matter how sad and angry I am I do not want to
believe that because if you really understood the situation and still kept
on failing to act then you would be evil and that I refuse to believe the popular
idea of cutting our emissions in half in 10 years only gives us a 50% chance of
staying below 1.5 degrees and the risk of setting of irreversible chain
reactions beyond human control 50% may be acceptable to you
but those numbers do not include tipping points most feedback loops additional
warming hidden by toxic air pollution or the aspects of equity and climate
justice they also rely on my generation sucking hundreds of billions of tons of
your co2 out of the air with technologies that barely exist so a 50%
risk is simply not acceptable to us we who have to live with the consequences
to have 67 percent chance of staying below a 1.5 degrees of global
temperature rise the best odds given by the IPCC the world had 420 gigatons of
co2 left to emit back on January 1st 2018 today that figure is already down
to less than 350 gigatons how dare you pretend that this can be sold with just
business as usual and some technical solutions
with today's emissions levels that remaining co2 budgets will be entirely
gone within less than eight and a half years there will not be any solutions or
plans presented in line with these figures here today because these numbers
are too uncomfortable and you are still not mature enough to tell it like it is
you are failing us but the young people are starting to understand your betrayal
the eyes of all future generations are upon you and if you choose to fail us I
say we will never forgive you
we will not let you get away with this right here right now is where we draw
the line the world is waking up and change is coming whether you like it or
not thank you
you