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Climate activist Greta Thunberg accused world leaders of failing her generation in a powerful, damning speech at the United Nations on Monday.



"This is all wrong," said Thunberg, the 16-year-old who launched a massive climate strike movement that drew millions to the streets last Friday. "I shouldn’t be up here. 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!" Thunberg's address came at the start of the UN Climate Action Summit, a day devoted to world leaders sharing climate solutions and new pledges for climate action. "You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words," Thunberg added. "And yet I’m 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!"



The Swedish activist emphasized that the science behind climate change has been "crystal clear" for more than 30 years, and yet the General Assembly, for all its words, had failed to take meaningful action. When Thunberg testified before the US Congress last week, she submitted the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change special report on the climate impacts predicted with 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming in lieu of prepared remarks. "How dare you continue to look away and come here saying that you are doing enough when the politics and solutions needed are still nowhere in sight," she said.

"You say you 'hear' us and that you understand the urgency. But no matter how sad and angry I am, I don’t want to believe that. Because if you fully understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil. And I refuse to believe that."

WATCH: Greta Thunberg passionately shares her message to world leaders at #UNGA: "We'll be watching you ... You'll come to us young people for hope. How dare you! You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words ... People are suffering. People are dying."

After her speech, Thunberg happened to be in the lobby of the United Nations as President Donald Trump arrived — and news cameras from around the world captured the instantly memeworthy expression on her face as he walked by. Trump was only at the climate summit for about 14 minutes, according to the White House pool report, and did not make any formal statement. Trump has questioned his own government's climate scientists, vowed to withdraw the US from the main global climate agreement, the Paris climate accord, and his administration has rolled back dozens of climate rules and initiatives. Neither the US, the largest historical emitter of climate pollution, nor China, the current biggest polluter, offered any new goals today. But some other countries took on the mantle. A Russian official announced it was finally ratifying the Paris climate agreement, making it one of the last countries to take this step. Slovakian President Zuzana Čaputová said her country would end subsidies to coal mines in 2023, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel said her nation would phase out coal power by 2038, among a series of climate targets, according to Climate Home News. And more than 60 countries pledged to get to net-zero emissions by 2050.

Sommet de l'ONU: Greta Thunberg croise Donald Trump...et son regard en dit long

I felt that

Find yourself someone who looks upon your worst enemy the way Greta Thunberg looks at Trump.

Greta Thunberg’s glare at Donald Trump is giving me the energy to get through this Monday

Thunberg's emotional speech left a strong impression on international politicians at the summit. “I was just so moved by her statement, and I think I agree in totality with what she has said," Mohammad Abubakar, Nigeria's minister of environment, told BuzzFeed News.

Referring to Thunberg's climate strike movement, Abubakar added: "The strike all across the world just a test of something to come. It might be something bigger if nothing is done." Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau said at a UN press briefing that the speech "moved us deeply." "Her words and where she was coming from is so powerful," Colau said, later adding that these kids "have to act like adults in front of the actual adults."

Today at 11:30 I and 15 other children from around the world filed a legal complaint against 5 nations over the climate crisis through the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. These 5 nations are the largest emitters that have ratified the convention. https://t.co/ZSyDMTYFSF