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2019 PERSON OF THE YEAR GRETA THUNBERG
PLANTS SEEDS FOR A POST PANDEMIC WORLD
BY SUYIN HAYNES2020 THE YEAR IN CLIMATE
Like miLLions of sTudenTs around The
world, Greta Thunberg is still getting used to at-
tending school virtually. But on a Sunday morning
in late November, the 17-year-old Swedish climate
activist—the youngest individual Person of the
Year ever—says she’s enjoying having some rou-
tines back. “That’s what I missed most during the
last year,” says Thunberg. It was a busy one. She
sailed across the Atlantic to speak at the U.N. in
New York City, turned the spotlight on Indigenous
activists at the U.N. climate summit in Madrid and
met world leaders at the World Economic Forum
in Davos.
Since her first school strike for the climate
outside the Swedish Parliament in August 2018,
millions more around the world have joined
Thunberg’s movement, demanding urgent trans-
formative change to save the planet from environ-
mental catastrophe. And as the world has adapted
to life during a global pandemic, so have the young
activists fighting for the future of our planet.
“All movements have had to step back dur-
ing this pandemic,” says Thunberg, whose plans
for 2020—to travel to Asia via the Trans-Siberian
Railway—were upended. “You have to take a few
steps back for the greater good.” The introductionof lockdown and social distancing into everyday
life has ruled out the possibility of major in-person
protests. But Thunberg says she and her fellow ac-
tivists were already adept at working remotely, as
many of them avoid flying because of air travel’s
high carbon emissions.
This year, they’ve held mass video calls and
events including a virtual global climate summit,
launched online campaigns to increase voter turnout
and political participation during the U.S. elections,
and filed landmark climate litigation that could
order European governments to step up emissions
reductions. And in a year when movements for racial
justice have gained worldwide support, the climate
movement is having a long overdue reflection on the
intersections of racial and climate justice.The pandemic, Thunberg says, is first and fore-
most a tragedy. Yet she says that the international
response has shown how governments could act
on the climate emergency. “It is possible to treat
a crisis like a crisis, it is possible to put people’s
health above economic interests, and it is possible
to listen to the science,” she argues, adding that
the pandemic has increased the value of science in
many societies, as governments depend on scien-
tific expertise to make policy decisions.
As governments speak of “green recov-
ery plans” for a post pandemic world, Thunberg
has kept up the pressure on decision makers. She
and other activists wrote an open letter to E.U.
leaders and heads of state in July, calling for ac-
tions including fossil-fuel divestment and binding
annual carbon budgets. After the letter, they met
in person with German Chancellor Angela Merkel
and virtually with European Commission presi-
dent Ursula von der Leyen and Italian Prime Min-
ister Giuseppe Conte. Thunberg was unimpressed.
“It’s the same as always. They say, ‘We’re
not doing enough, but at least it’s better than
nothing,’ ” Thunberg says. “The time for that is
over. We now need to do the impossible.” And
while she sees the election of Joe Biden as a
symbolic departure from “the other one,” as she
refers to outgoing President Donald Trump, she
warns against complacency: “We can’t go back to
sleep and think things are solved now.”
Thunberg will turn 18 in January, and seems more
confident and assertive than the child who unexpect-
edly started a movement more than two years ago.
Like most of us, she’s unsure of her plans for next
year. “I’m just going to take things as they come,”
she says, “and try to take it one day at a time.” Yet
on the threshold of adulthood, she remains firmly
convinced of her mission. “Of course, I’m going to
continue to do everything I can to push in the right
direction, no matter what the circumstances are.”
—With reporting by madeLine roache/London Thunberg at
an Oct. 9
climate protest
in Stockholm JONATHAN NACKSTRAND—AFP/GETTY IMAGES