The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
MY QUEST TO CHANGE THE WORLD – AND OUR FUTURE
Greta Thunberg sees first-hand the effects of the climate change crisis. Kerri-Ann Roper reports
She’s considered one of the most influential voices of her generation, but environmental activist and climate change campaigner Greta Thunberg is modest when it comes to talking about the impact she has made. The 18-year-old from Sweden has become a global force for good following her lone protest in 2018, which saw her strike for three weeks outside the Swedish Parliament holding a sign saying “School Strike for Climate”.
She says she’s still surprised at the effect she’s had.
“I still don’t really understand why people are actually listening to me,” she says when we talk on Zoom. “Also, because I’ve always been a shy, invisible girl at the back that no one listens to, I’ve always been very socially awkward, and I haven’t really been able to be involved in the social game, so to speak.
“And to go from that, to be someone who many people listen to is, of course, a very big contrast. So of course, it’s very strange. I don’t really understand why. I guess it was just the right thing to do, and the right timing, and people were maybe ready for that kind of thing.”
Her strike inspired the Fridays For Future movement, which would involve more than 100,000 schoolchildren going on strikes in more than 100 countries. And now in the BBC series titled Greta Thunberg: A Year To Change The World, we can follow her 2019 journey as she explores the science of global warming and challenges world leaders to take action. She witnesses first-hand the consequences of climate change and also meets climate scientists and experts, among them Sir David Attenborough.
She travels through Canada, including a national park in the Canadian Rockies, and learns how a small change in temperature has allowed an insect infestation to kill nearly half the trees in the park. In Europe, she meets Polish miners who have lost their jobs and tell of their fear of the impact climate change policies will have on their industry.
She also explores how technology is trying to help, examining a machine in Switzerland that sucks carbon dioxide out of the air, and in the UK investigating the prototype of a technology that aims to lower emissions by capturing carbon dioxide from factories before it enters the atmosphere.
“Every single trip, every single meeting has impacted me, in different ways,” she says. “The plan was to go on travelling. I think we had more than 100 days planned, (including) going to China and going into east Asia. But then, of course, the coronavirus pandemic came. So that didn’t happen.”
Thunberg, who has been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, which is a form of autism, says the people featured in the series are important in giving the climate change fight a face.
She says: “We may think of, when we think of the climate crisis, polar bears and so on. But to actually see that it has human implications is very important.”
Referring to the idea we have to act now because our children will be impacted in the future, she says: “When we say that, we forget the people who are already suffering today... their stories also need to be told, and we need to see the human implications. This is actually impacting people today and has been (for) a long time.”
Her meeting with Sir David Attenborough as part of the series was, she reflects, “truly remarkable” and “very encouraging. Because he said that we young people have had an impact, and that people are listening to us,” she says.
Millions have joined her call to demand countries and leaders stick to the 2015 Paris Agreement, the world’s first comprehensive treaty on climate change, which commits countries to holding global temperature rises to “well below” 2C above pre-industrial levels, and greenhouse gas emissions to be cut to net zero by the second half of the century.
In February this year, America returned to the global climate accord as new president Joe Biden reversed the work of predecessor Donald Trump. But does Thunberg think the change of leadership will make a difference?
“Well, of course, Biden is not good for the environment, but maybe he is a bit less worse than the previous administration,” she says. “Of course, it could make a big difference. As long as we don’t allow ourselves to relax now, and think, ‘Oh, at least it’s better than before, this will be taken care of ’, because that could be dangerous.”
Greta Thunberg: A Year To Change The World is on BBC One on Monday and on BBC iPlayer.