Swedish activist, Activist
Youth & Indigenous Activists Take Center Stage at United Nations Climate Action Summit
Scores of world leaders gathered in New York on Monday for the U.N. Climate Action Summit, but the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitters announced few new measures to address the climate crisis. President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence briefly attended the summit but left after just 14 minutes. At the beginning of the summit, 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg delivered an impassioned address to world leaders, explicitly naming their inaction on the climate crisis. Youth climate activists from around the world also spoke at UNICEF about a landmark new climate complaint...
About Greta Thunberg
Greta Thunberg spoke at the Tech for Palestine Brussels Conference in April and June 2026, where she discussed the connection between climate activism and other social justice issues, including Palestine. She stated that the same values drive her activism for the climate and for Palestine, describing them as part of a fight against the same system that exploits people and nature. Thunberg argued that climate activists cannot ignore injustices such as the situation in Gaza, and she criticized what she described as the complicity of governments, institutions, and companies in enabling genocide. She also said that accusations of antisemitism are used to water down the term and to silence criticism of Israeli policies. In interviews, Thunberg addressed the relationship between ecocide and genocide, stating that the destruction of ecosystems and people's means to survive are methods of oppression. She named Swedish officials and companies, including Vice Prime Minister Ebba Busch and Spotify founder Daniel Ek, as examples of those she believes are enabling the conflict. Thunberg also discussed her personal habits, noting that she does not buy new clothes and prefers receiving socks as gifts. She described herself as autistic and said that people sometimes perceive her as serious and angry, though she noted that her friend calls the "Greta effect" a regression of humor to that of a 12-year-old boy.
Transcript (27 segments)
✨ AI-enhanced transcript with speaker attribution
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Amy Goodman0:00
This is Democracy Now! democracynow.org, the war and peace report. I'm Amy Goodman. Scores of world leaders gathered in New York on Monday for the UN Climate Action Summit, but the world's largest greenhouse gas emitters announced few new measures to address the climate crisis. President Trump briefly attended the summit but left after just 14 minutes. Near the beginning of the summit, 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg gave an impassioned address to world leaders.
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Greta Thunberg0:29
This is all wrong. I shouldn't be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you! You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. Yet I'm one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth. How dare you! For more than 30 years, the science has been crystal clear. How dare you continue to look away and come here saying that you're doing enough, when the politics and solutions needed are still nowhere in sight. You say you hear us and that you understand the urgency. But no matter how sad and angry I am, I do not want to believe that. Because if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil. And that I refuse to believe. The popular idea of cutting our emissions in half in 10 years only gives us a 50% chance of staying below 1.5 degrees, and the risk of setting off irreversible chain reactions beyond human control. 50% may be acceptable to you, but those numbers do not include tipping points, most feedback loops, additional warming hidden by toxic air pollution, or the aspects of equity and climate justice. They also rely on my generation sucking hundreds of billions of tons of your CO2 out of the air with technologies that barely exist. So a 50% risk is simply not acceptable to us, we who have to live with the consequences. To have a 6 to 7% chance of staying below 1.5 degrees of global temperature rise, the best odds given by the IPCC, the world had 420 gigatons of CO2 left to emit back on January 1st, 2018. Today that figure is already down to less than 350 gigatons. How dare you pretend that this can be solved with just business as usual and some technical solutions! With today's emissions levels, that remaining CO2 budget will be entirely gone within less than eight and a half years. There will not be any solutions or plans presented in line with these figures here today, because these numbers are too uncomfortable and you are still not mature enough to tell it like it is. You are failing us. But the young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say we will never forgive you. We will not let you get away with this. Right here, right now is where we draw the line. The world is waking up, and change is coming, whether you like it or not. Thank you.
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Amy Goodman4:47
16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg speaking at the United Nations on Monday. Greta was later seen glaring at President Trump as he passed near her inside the United Nations. Meanwhile, Greta and 15 other youth climate activists from around the world filed a complaint Monday with the United Nations, accusing five major countries of violating the Convention on the Rights of the Child by failing to protect children from the devastating impacts of the climate crisis. Greta and the other petitioners spoke at the UNICEF headquarters.
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Alexandra Villasenor5:22
My name is Alexandra Villasenor. I'm 14 years old. I'm from New York. And I'm here because 30 years ago the world signed a contract between generations that the present world would leave a world worth inheriting to the future. And today I want to tell the world: you are defaulting on that contract, and we're here to collect.
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Carl Smith6:00
Hi, my name is Carl Smith. I'm from Alaska, and I'm 17 years old. I'm here because climate change is affecting the way I live. It is taking away my home, the land, and the animals.
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Ronson Jane6:24
My name is Ronson Jane. I'm 17 years old and I'm from the Marshall Islands. I'm here because climate change is destroying my islands through sea level rise and storms.
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Gareth Achieved6:50
Hi, good morning. My name is Gareth Achieved. I'm 17 years old and I am from Argentina. I am here today because I have things to say, and I am here today on behalf of my people. Argentina is suffering from a climate crisis. We need to decide which side of the week we are on, and we need to do it now.
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David Ackley7:14
Hello, my name is David Ackley. I'm 16 years old from the Marshall Islands. I'm here today because my islands are drowning, and I'm here to stop it.
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Katerina Lorenzo7:36
Hello, my name is Katerina Lorenzo. I'm 12 years old and I'm from Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. I'm here to demand all the world leaders to listen to us and to help us stop climate change together. In Salvador, Brazil, the government throws and dumps sewage into the river, which goes to the ocean, and we cannot go swim or surf because we all get sick. I'm saying this because this is the right thing to say, and this is the truth, and this is our life that is being harmed, and our future.
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Carlos Hands Manuel8:18
My name is Carlos Hands Manuel. I'm 17 and I'm from Palau. I am here because I want my voice to be heard. I want other countries to know that small island nations are the most vulnerable countries to be affected by climate change. Our homes are slowly being swallowed up by the ocean. The places where memories are made, the places where trust and respect are gained, the places where we stop and have fun. It's really sad to say, but those places are slowly disappearing. I am standing in front of you because I care about my generation. I care about my future generation. I want a better life for us, a better future, and the most important thing: I want a better planet for us to live in. Thank you.
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Ron Ivanova9:09
Good morning everyone. My name is Ron Ivanova and I'm 15 years old. I'm from Hamburg, Germany, and I'm here today because climate change is not just affecting all of us, it's affecting every single person in this room and every single human being on our planet. And I want you to take your responsibility and make decisions today that you can still be proud of in 11 years. Thank you.
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Reto Connect Upwa9:49
My name is Reto Connect Upwa and I am from the Marshall Islands. I am here because I'm going to speak on behalf of my people, because we are on the frontline of the climate crisis, and I am here to stop that.
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Redeem Panda10:11
Hello everyone, my name is Redeem Panda. I'm 11 years old and I'm from India. I'm here because I want all the global leaders to do something to stop climate change, because if it's not going to be stopped, it's going to harm our future. So if we want to stop global warming, we have to do something now.
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Unknown10:41
Hello everyone, first of all I'd like to introduce this little sweet girl. This is Ellen Annie from the community of Sweden. She's 8 years old and she's here today because she loves reindeer and she wants to take care of it when she gets old. The problem is that here in her country, they are suffering from food shortages, and that's why she's here today.
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Very Ruslan11:13
Hello everyone, my name is Very Ruslan. I'm 17 years old and I'm from Tunisia. I came here today to tell you that I want my voice to be heard by my country, which is one of the countries that are suffering from climate change. And I want to tell you that climate change is definitely coming, and we must prepare for confrontation. Thank you.
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Adelaide Deborah11:49
Hi, my name is Adelaide Deborah. I'm from Nigeria and I'm here to make an impact. I represent my country.
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Iris Request Nee12:02
Hi, my name is Iris Request Nee. I'm 16 and I'm from France. I'm here because climate change is affecting my country economically, but it's also affecting me personally.
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Greta Thunberg12:23
My name is Greta Thunberg. I am 16 years old, and I'm doing this because world leaders are failing to protect the rights of the child by continuing to ignore the climate and ecological crisis.
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Amy Goodman12:42
Greta Thunberg and other young people speaking at UNICEF headquarters about their new complaint filed with the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. In other news from the UN Climate Action Summit, a number of indigenous leaders from Brazil traveled to New York to protest Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's push to open up the Amazon rainforest for agribusiness, logging, and mining. Democracy Now! spoke to Chief Raoni of the Kayapó tribe on Monday. He talked about the situation in the Amazon, including the recent outbreak of devastating fires.
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Chief Raoni13:19
There are many things happening in Brazil. In the previous government, it wasn't like this, it wasn't so bad. Now the Bolsonaro government is authorizing deforestation. He's authorizing the entrance of wildcat miners and loggers and mining companies into indigenous territories. This is bad because it will destroy everything. It will destroy the forests, destroy the Amazon. It will be bad for us in the future. This is what I defend. But I don't defend standing virgin forests just for me. No, I'm thinking of the future, our grandchildren and great-grandchildren living in peace in this forest. So what Bolsonaro is doing is very bad.
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Amy Goodman14:07
Do you have any hope that something will happen at this summit? I mean, Bolsonaro is not here. President Trump is in the building but he's not attending the climate summit. What do you hope will happen to save the Amazon here?
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Chief Raoni14:31
I hope that something good comes out of this gathering. I hope they decide to help the Amazon and the environment. I hope that here in this gathering they help the Amazon to remain mighty. This is what I want. I don't want people to be in conflict. We need to live in peace, to live well, to live without conflict. This is what I think. And this is what I say now. This is my thinking: that we should live in peace, without fights, without problems, without conflict. This is what I think.
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Amy Goodman15:04
And what are indigenous groups like your own people doing to resist Bolsonaro's policies in the Amazon?
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Chief Raoni15:14
We, the Kayapó, want to continue defending our lands, our forests, our future, and our people. This is what we think. We will resist. We will continue. I will continue speaking so that they in Brazil respect us, that they respect our culture, our customs, our land. I've been saying this and I'm saying it again here. But destruction is happening around our area. Soy and corn planters are destroying all of the forests surrounding our land. But we, the Kayapó, will resist. We will continue our struggle to not have invasions of miners, loggers, fishermen. This is what I do not like and do not accept.
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Amy Goodman16:02
You said the Amazon, which we know is very important for the survival of humanity, not just for the communities who have lived there. Explain why the Amazon is so important for the climate of the world.
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Chief Raoni16:18
The standing forest cools the land. The land becomes cold, becomes normal. If you deforest, as we are seeing deforestation, there will be no more trees to provide shade.
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Amy Goodman16:34
After the interview with Democracy Now!, Brazilian indigenous chief Raoni of the Kayapó tribe attempted to enter the UN Climate Action Summit. Despite support from dozens of activists, he was barred from entering. Earlier this month, a group of Brazilian anthropologists and environmentalists nominated him as a candidate for the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize. Special thanks to Democracy Now! This is Democracy Now! democracynow.org, the war and peace report. When we come back, our interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates. He has a new novel out. It's called The Water Dancer. Stay with us.