Greta Thunberg and other youth climate activists around the world on Thursday criticized world leaders for “inaction” in addressing the long-term impacts of climate change, arguing that young people “will have to clean up the mess you adults have made. “
Criticism appeared in an essay published by The New York Times on Thursday, a day before the three-year anniversary of when Thunberg jumped out of school to protest outside the Swedish Parliament, and started a global movement led by the youth with the aim of drawing attention to the climate crisis.
“Today, millions of children and young people have joined in a one-voice movement, demanding decision-makers to do the work needed to save our planet from unprecedented heat waves, massive floods and the great forest fires we are witnessing more and more, ”the activists wrote. .
“Our protest will not end until inaction ends,” they added, calling the climate change “the greatest threat to our future.”
“We are the ones who will have to clean up the mess you adults have made and we are the ones most likely to suffer now,” Thunberg added, along with Mexican Adriana Calderon, Bangladesh Farzana Faruk Jhumu and Kenyan Eric Njuguna.
Activists cited the publication of a new report by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), which noted that nearly half of the world’s 2.2 billion children are at “extremely high risk” of suffering harmful results from climate change, including greenhouse gas pollution. greenhouse effect, floods and heat waves.
UNICEF also found that all children on the planet are exposed to at least one climate and environmental risk, shock or stress, including air pollution and water scarcity.
Thunberg and colleagues wrote that the report shows the state of the “the world is left to us “.
“But there is still time to change our climate future,” they continued. “All over the world, our movement of young activists continues to grow.”
Youth activists noted that the UNICEF report revealed that many of the “highest-risk countries are the world’s poorest countries in the south, and this is where people will be most affected, while contributing less to the problem.”
“We will not allow industrialized countries to take responsibility for the suffering of children in other parts of the world,” they continued. “Governments, industry and the rest of the international community must work together to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, like 195 countries committed to do in the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement “.
“We are in a crisis of crisis,” they wrote. “A pollution crisis. A climate crisis. A crisis of children’s rights “.
“We will not allow the world to look the other way,” they said.
The trial also follows the publication by the United Nations last week of a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which states that countries’ fossil fuel emissions have ensured that global warming will increase at a rapid pace. substantial over the next 30 years.