“I look at the people in power and wonder how they have made things so complicated,” she wrote in an essay for The Guardian that November. “I hear people saying that climate change is an existential threat, yet I watch as people carry on like nothing is happening. We can no longer save the world by playing by the rules because the rules have to be changed.”
Greta Thunberg (front row, bottom right), with fellow climate youth activists in Stockholm, Sweden on Friday.Credit: AP
Thunberg’s voice as a young student offered clarity and urgency – and people listened.
Her activism paved the way for a day of youth-led climate protests on every continent in 2019. Organisers estimated the turnout to be about 4 million people across thousands of cities and towns worldwide. It was the first time children and young people had demonstrated to demand climate action en masse.
In February, Thunberg told The New York Times that “the world is getting more and more grim every day”. On the flip side, she said, “we have more people now who are mobilised and who are in the climate movement, in the fight for the climate and social justice.”
That sentiment continued to ring true on her graduation day. Thunberg said on Twitter that “much has changed since we started”, but that there was still a long way to go.
Loading
“We are still moving in the wrong direction, where those in power are allowed to sacrifice marginalised and affected people and the planet in the name of greed, profit and economic growth,” she wrote, adding that the world was approaching “tipping points beyond our control”.
It was not immediately clear whether Thunberg would enroll in a university. She could not immediately be reached for comment.
But she recognised her fellow graduates who, like her, “now wonder what kind of future it is that we are stepping into, even though we did not cause this crisis”.
She said they had “a duty” to continue to speak up.
“In order to change everything, we need everyone,” she wrote. “We simply have no other option than to do everything we possibly can. The fight has only just begun.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for the weekly What in the World newsletter here.