Greta Thunberg, the 17-year-old Swedish eco-activist has accused high-ranking leaders of using her to secure political points.
This is coming days after she posed alongside Britain’s Prince Charles and Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel. Thunberg said she had a “dislike” for those politicians who wanted to take advantage of her fame by being pictured alongside her.
She said; “Presidents, prime ministers, kings and princesses came and wanted to talk to me. They saw me and suddenly saw the chance that they could take a photo with me for their Instagram account. Then the hashtag #savetheplanet”.
“It seemed as if they had forgotten for a moment to be ashamed that their generation had let future generations down” she added.
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Thunberg first drew international attention when she called for legislative action on climate change outside the Swedish parliament in 2018.
She then spearheaded a global movement called Fridays for Future, which encourages students to skip classes for similar strikes.
In September, 2019, she gave an emotional ”How dare you? speech” at the UN summit in New York.
“To be fair, it was not only her, it was many”, she told the BBC, speaking about her September encounter with Merkel. “And those kinds of things happen all the time. People just want to stand next to me and other climate activists”.
“They can post it on social media and it makes them look good, it makes them seem like they care”.
AFRICA TODAY NEWS, NEW YORK