And right now federal governments are failing to act.
The United States, to the horror of the world
withdrew from the Paris agreement.
But despite that, many of the other
actors in charge of some of the most advanced
and wealthiest economies, have withdrawn from
the agreement in action. Not a single one
is on track to meet their Paris goals.
Deeper still, we don't have to project
one minute into our future to see that
the climate crisis is already here.
On this note, I speak to you not as an elected official
or public figure, but I speak to you
as a human being. A woman whose dreams
of motherhood now taste bittersweet.
Because of what I know about our children's future.
And that our actions are responsible for
bringing their most dire possibilities into focus.
I speak to you as a daughter and descendant of colonised
peoples who have already begun to suffer.
Just two years ago, one of the deadliest disasters
in the United States struck in the form of Hurricane Maria.
The climate change-powered storm killed over 3,000 Puerto Ricans,
American citizens, my own grandfather died
in the aftermath. None of this is a coincidence;
because climate change is not a coincidence
or a scientific anomaly. Climate change is a consequence.
It is a consequence of our unsustainable way of life.
Because it is unsustainable to organise our society
as we have, centered on prioritising personal gain
and profit over any and all human or planetary considerations.
And frankly, it is unsustainable to continue to believe that
our system of runaway, unaccountable, law-breaking
pursuit of profit, whose inequality is so socially destabilizing
that it is giving rise to authoritarians who
burn our forests and challenge the democracies
that listen to basic science and to think that that
has nothing to do with this. [Audience clapping and cheering]