Take action or you'll be seen as a villain: Teen climate activist tells Modi

16-year-old Greta Thunberg had earlier said world leaders were behaving like children about climate change.

“You need to take action now against the climate crisis, not just talking about it because if you keep going on like this, doing business as usual, and just talking about and bragging about the little victories, you are going to fail. And if you fail, you are going to be seen as one of the worst villains in human history in the future. And you don’t want that.” 

This powerful message for Prime Minister Narendra Modi isn’t issued by some world body or by any other world leader, but by a 16-year-old climate activist from Sweden. 

Meet Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) who in August last year became the face of a ‘school strike’ outside the Swedish parliament building. She has been boycotting classes every Friday and has staked out a spot in front of parliament in Stockholm, demanding that her government step up the fight against climate change. Her message is simple: “Strike for climate”. 

She has also inspired tens of thousands of high school students -- in Sydney, Brussels, Berlin, The Hague, London and other cities to follow suit. Some have marched in the streets bearing banners: “Save Our Future,” “Act Now!”, “Climate Change is Real”. 

Now, Greta in a video posted by Brut India asked Prime Minister Modi to take real action against the climate crisis. The video since going live has got over 2,000 likes and have been retweeted over 700 times. 

Thunberg made waves at the United Nations climate change summit, COP24, where she said, “We have not come here to beg the world leaders to care for our future. They have ignored us in the past and they will ignore us again. We have come here to let them know that change is coming whether they like it or not.” 

She has also criticised her own country, Sweden for its emissions. At the COP24 summit, she said world leaders behaved like children. 

“Since our leaders are behaving like children, we will have to take the responsibility they should have taken long ago. We have to understand what the older generation has dealt to us, what mess they have created that we have to clean up and live with. We have to make our voices heard,” she had said.