Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish girl who led a generation of young climate activists to the streets in protest against climate change, has been declared TIME magazine’s 2019 Person of the Year.
Earlier included in TIME’s 100 Most Influential People of 2019 list, Thunberg was declared the person of the year on Wednesday.
Thunberg spoke to the magazine while she was aboard a sailboat travelling from the Americas to Europe—Thunberg refuses to travel by flight citing the high carbon footprint of flying.
The magazine said that she inspired “a global attitudinal shift, transforming millions of vague, middle-of-the-night anxieties into a worldwide movement calling for urgent change.”
"She has offered a moral clarion call to those who are willing to act, and hurled shame on those who are not,” it added.
Thunberg has been instrumental in rephrasing the terminology of climate change, repeatedly using the term 'climate emergency' in her speeches.
She came into international prominence after skipping schooling in August 2018 to camp in front of the Swedish Parliament to lead the “School Strike for Climate”—a movement that has since inspired thousands of similar strikes across the world as a new generation demanded global climate action.
Describing her achievements since then, the TIME article said, “In the 16 months since, she has addressed heads of state at the UN, met with the Pope, sparred with the President of the United States and inspired 4 million people to join the global climate strike on September 20, 2019, in what was the largest climate demonstration in human history. “
In a fiery speech that has since gone viral, Thunberg addressed the UN General Assembly in September, shaming those present and the generation at large for failing to act on climate change in time, leaving the onus on the next generation to battle and survive the consequences. “How dare you!” she asked the gathering of world leaders with unbridled fury.
Thunberg inspired so many ‘climate strikes’ that the term became Collins Dictionary’s word of the year in 2019.
On Wednesday, Thunberg was present at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Madrid, where she accused CEOs and world leaders of ‘creative PR’ by doing nothing to tackle global warming while “making it look like real action is happening”.