05.29.2019

16-year-old Climate Activist Greta Thunberg

Greta Thunberg is a 16-year-old climate activist who has taken the world by storm speaking out to convince policy-makers to take action on issues related to climate change. She joins Christiane Amanpour to discuss her activism.

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CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: And how much support do you get? Do you get noticed when you are not in school and when you’re sitting on the steps of the Swedish Parliament?

THUNBERG: Yes. I mean they support me and they support my message but maybe not the part of me not being at school but they help me catch up and so on. So they are supportive.

AMANPOUR: So that’s great. So you’re not falling behind in your studies. What made you be so passionate about the environment? What was it that sparks that interest in you?

THUNBERG: My interest about the climate and the environment began when I was maybe 10-years-old. And my teachers in school told me that there’s something called climate change and global warming that’s caused by humans and our behavior. And I thought that sounded very strange because if that was so, if there was something that big that threatened our very existence, then that will be our first priority. We wouldn’t be talking about anything else. But it wasn’t our first priority and I am the kind of person who doesn’t like when people say one thing and then do another thing. And that was the case with climate change. Everyone said that it’s the most important issue of all and it’s an existential threat and yet they just carry on like before. And so I started reading about it and the more I read about it, the more I understood. And once you fully understand the climate crisis, you cannot un-understand. You’re stuck. You have to do something about it.

AMANPOUR: Well, you know what, you have unstuck yourself and you’ve unstuck a lot of people and made them aware of this crisis in a way that they perhaps weren’t before listening to you. You made a big splash at COP24 in Poland and you made a big splash at Davos. And I want to play this little clip of you addressing all these world leaders at Davos.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

THUNBERG: Adults keep saying we owe it to the young people to give them hope but I don’t want your hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act.

About This Episode EXPAND

Christiane Amanpour speaks with Hilde Schramm about her life’s work making sure people do not forget about the Holocaust. She also speaks with young climate activist Greta Thunberg. Walter Isaacson speaks with Deborah Lipstadt, Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies and author of a new book, “Antisemitism: Here and Now.”

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