“We must also listen to the testimonies and experiences of the people who are most affected by the climate crisis,” she pleaded in an interview with the Swedish agency TT.
“It’s time to pass the megaphone to those who really have stories to tell. We need new perspectives,” pleads the 19-year-old Swede.
Having become the face of the climate cause, overexposed in the media since she started a “school strike for the climate” in 2018, the pioneer of the Fridays for future movement must finish high school at the end of the year.
Its desire to better share the center stage is based on the fact that climate change is already having devastating consequences on the lives of people around the world.
“So it becomes all the more hypocritical when people in Sweden for example say that we will be able to adapt and that we shouldn’t be afraid of what may happen in the future,” she told TT.
While world leaders are gathered for COP27 in Egypt, the Swedish activist announced that she would not go to the climate conference, judging that these international meetings are now a matter of “greenwashing”.
The Swede, who had already deplored that the COP26, organized last year in Glasgow, boils down to her only “blah blah blah”, explains that her meetings with world leaders have made her more pessimistic.
“Some statements by world leaders and heads of state when the microphones are off are hard to believe when told,” notes the young woman.
“The lack of knowledge of the most powerful people on the planet is shocking,” she said.
Next year, the Stockholmer, who does not directly mention the form that her possible withdrawal could take, intends to want to pursue higher education.
“We’ll see. If I had to choose today, I would choose to continue my studies. Preferably something related to social issues,” she says.
