Miss Greta Thunberg
“Many people say that Sweden is just a small country, and it doesn’t matter what we do, but I’ve learnt that you are never too small to make a difference.” – Greta Thunberg
Miss Greta Thunberg is a Swedish climate activist, and the youngest The Perfect World Foundation Award recipient to date. She sparked an international movement to fight climate change beginning in 2018, with the simple message ‘School strike for climate’ handwritten on poster board, Thunberg began skipping school on Fridays and protesting outside the Swedish Parliament. Through social media, her actions have spread and influenced millions of young people all over the world to organize and protest.
Launching ‘Fridays for Future’, Thunberg and other concerned youths throughout the world have continued to pressure leaders and lawmakers to act on climate change through their regular walkouts. Thunberg has also travelled the world, meeting with global leaders and speaking at assemblies to demand climate solutions and a recommitment to the Paris Agreement. As the face of the climate youth movement, Thunberg has also been invited to speak at numerous climate events all over the world. In December 2018, her emotional speech at the United Nations COP24 in Katowice, Poland, went viral.
Thunberg’s message is direct – listen to the scientists – and her actions and movement has shown that the young generation are committed to rise up and demand a sustainable future for the planet, humanity and wildlife.
Thunberg was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in March 2019, and a few months later she became the youngest individual ever to be honoured as Time’s ‘Person of the Year’.