Not a long ago, a teen environmental activist Greta Thunberg made a strong impression with her fiery address in Manhattan, where she reprimanded the world’s leaders for not doing more to combat the climate change.
And now the 16-year-old climate change activist has become one of four people who have received a Right Livelihood Award, also known as the ‘Alternative Nobel.’
At just a young age of 16, she would be the youngest recipient of the prestigious award and also, she would be the first-ever person to win the prize for environmental work since Al Gore.
Thunberg is one of only a few in the world whose nomination has become known before the Nobel ceremony.
The prize foundation said on Wednesday that Thunberg is being felicitated “for inspiring and amplifying political demands for urgent climate action reflecting scientific facts.”
The foundation added that the 16-year-old, who has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, “personifies the notion that everyone has the power to create change. The kind of example that she set has inspired and encouraged people from around the globe to demand political action.
Thunberg had received the prize from the Stockholm-based Right Livelihood Foundation set up in 1980 after the Nobel Foundation turned down a proposal to create an environmental prize for “inspiring and amplifying political demands for urgent climate action reflecting scientific facts,” as reported by AP.
She has hit out at accusations that she is paid for her activism or is being “used” by anyone else. She wrote on her Facebook account earlier this year that “there is no one ‘behind’ me except for myself.
“My parents were as far from climate activists as possible before I made them aware of the situation,” the Reuters quotes her as saying.
Thunberg even rose to global prominence in 2018 by taking time off school to demonstrate outside the Swedish Parliament regarding the lack of action to fight climate change. After being inspired by her weekly protest, millions of youths protested around the world last Friday to mount pressure on governments to act.