Climate activist Greta Thunberg named Time magazine’s Person of the Year

Greta Thunberg is chosen by Time magazine as its youngest ever recipient of the annual title.

Swedish environment activist Greta Thunberg gives a speech at the plenary session during the COP25 Climate Conference in Madrid, Spain. Picture: Pablo Blazquez Dominguez/Getty

Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg said she was surprised and honoured to learn she had been named Time’s youngest Person of the Year, saying the accolade deserved to be shared by others in the global climate movement.

The 16-year-old Swede has become the face of a new generation of activists, drawing large crowds with her appearances at protests and conferences over the past year and a half. Some have welcomed her activism, including her speeches challenging world leaders to do more to stop global warming. But others have criticised her sometimes combative tone.

Time’s cover of its Person of the Year edition.

“For sounding the alarm about humanity’s predatory relationship with the only home we have, for bringing to a fragmented world a voice that transcends backgrounds and borders, for showing us all what it might look like when a new generation leads, Greta Thunberg is TIME’s 2019 Person of the Year,” the media franchise said on its website.

The magazine’s editor in chief wrote: “That Thunberg is the youngest individual ever named TIME’s Person of the Year says as much about the moment as it does about her. The 92-year-old franchise is rooted in the so-called Great Man theory of history, the notion that powerful individuals shape the world. Historically that has meant people who worked their way up the ladders of major organisations and were at home in the corridors of power.

“But in this moment when so many traditional institutions seem to be failing us, amid staggering inequality and social upheaval and political paralysis, we are seeing new kinds of influence take hold. It is wielded by people like Thunberg, leaders with a cause and a phone who don’t fit the old rubrics but who connect with us in ways that institutions can’t and perhaps never could.’’

The daughter of an opera singer mother and an actor-turned-producer father born, Thunberg has faced severe criticism — the latest from Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who dismissed her as a “brat” — and been subjected to a swarm of online conspiracy theory.

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg attends a high-level event on climate emergency hosted by the Chilean presidency during the UN Climate Change Conference COP25 in Madrid. Picture: Cristina Quicler/AFP

Some mock her youth or try to discredit her because of her Asperger’s syndrome, a diagnosis she has never hidden. Her diagnosis means that Thunberg “doesn’t operate on the same emotional register as many of the people she meets,” Time magazine wrote.

“She dislikes crowds; ignores small talk; and speaks in direct, uncomplicated sentences. She cannot be flattered or distracted” — and according to the magazine, “these very qualities have helped make her a global sensation.”

Thunberg says she is mystified by the hostility of some of the reaction to her. “I honestly don’t understand why adults would choose to spend their time mocking and threatening teenagers and children for promoting science when they could do something good instead,” she wrote on Twitter in September. “Being different is not an illness.” She also insists that she has “not received any money” for her activism. And with 12 million followers on her Instagram, Twitter and Facebook accounts, she continues to rack up high-profile supporters, from Barack Obama to the Dalai Lama and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Leaving a UN climate conference in Madrid, Thunberg said she was “a bit surprised” at the recognition. “I could never have imagined anything like that happening,” she said in a phone interview.

See every TIME Person of the Year cover throughout history #TIMEPOY https://t.co/Tu4wQKtCjZ pic.twitter.com/85QjXylSkg

— TIME (@TIME) December 11, 2019

“I’m of course, very grateful for that, very honoured,” Thunberg said, but added that “it should be everyone in the Fridays for Future movement because what we have done, we have done together.”

Thunberg said she was hopeful that the message being pushed by her and other activists — that governments need to drastically increase their efforts to combat climate change — is finally getting through.

But she insisted that the media should also pay attention to other activists, particularly indigenous people who she said “are hit hardest by the climate and environmental crisis,” and to the science around global warming. “That is what I am trying to do, to use my platform to do,” she said. Thunberg said the movement, which has staged repeated worldwide protests attended by hundreds of thousands of people, had managed to spread awareness about the need to urgently reduce planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions and help those already affected by climate change.

Greta Thunberg speaks at a climate protest outside the White House in Washington in September. Picture: Nicholas Kamm/AFP

“To get in a sense of urgency in the conversation that is very needed right now to be able to move forward,” she said. “That, I think, is our biggest success.” Asked whether she thought world leaders were beginning to respond to this message, Thunberg said: “They say they listen and they say they understand, but it sure doesn’t seem like it.” “If they really would listen and understand then I think they need to prove that by translating that into action,” she added.

She said the experience of the past 15 months, going from solo-protester outside the Swedish parliament to speaking in front of world leaders at the UN General Assembly, had changed her.

“I think life is much more meaningful now that I have something to do that has an impact,” she said.

AP