Greta Thunberg Calls Out World Leaders at UN Climate Summit: "You Have Stolen My Dreams"

Greta Thunberg at #UNGA: "This is all wrong. I shouldn't be up here. I should be in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you come to us young people for hope. How dare you. You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words."
Via ABC pic.twitter.com/NudonxKNss

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) September 23, 2019

Climate change is affecting our planet at an alarming rate, and 16-year-old youth activist Greta Thunberg from Sweden is taking direct action to bring full awareness to the issue and encourage world leaders to take action, as well. At the UN Climate Summit in New York on Sept. 23, Thunberg and 15 other youth activists announced that they are suing five major carbon polluters from around the globe on the grounds that the countries — Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany, and Turkey — are violating their rights as children.

"This is all wrong; I shouldn't be up here," Thunberg said, trembling with rage as she addressed the General Assembly. "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, my childhood with your empty words. Yet, I am 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 fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you."

Thunberg's speech comes after Friday's global climate change strike, where an estimated four million people showed up around the world to protest the failure of world leaders to take action against climate change. If the lawsuit is successful, the UN would classify the global climate crisis as a children's rights crisis.

"We will not let you get away with this," Greta said in her fiery UN address. "Right here, right now is where we draw the line." Watch Thunberg's full, empowering and emotional speech here.