62
Movement is a new phenomenon and needs a
conceptual framework to allow researchers to
conduct future research to understand it.
The second part of this chapter utilises the
new conceptual framework on youth climate
change adaptation on the Youth Employment and
Entrepreneurship Project (YEEP) in Sierra
Leone, a least developing country (LDC) in West
Africa.
The Youth Shall Lead Them: Greta
Thunberg and the Climate Action
Strike Movement
Greta Thunberg, a Swedish teenager and climate
change activist, inspired the mobilisation of millions of youth across the globe to participate in
the Global Climate Strike Movement. She established the Friday for Future Movement, which
evolved into the Youth Strike 4 Climate
Movement. The aim of setting up the climate
movement was to call on politicians and global
leaders to take climate change seriously and to
disrupt businesses all over the world as a strategy
to raise awareness on the issues regarding the
impact of climate change. The September 2019
climate strike event was planned to incorporate
with a UN Emergency Climate Change Action
summit held in New York. Climate strike activities were organised in over 185 countries, in more
than 6100 locations across the globe, and involved
over 7 million people. Climate actions took place
in 185 countries involving 73 trade unions, over
3000 businesses and 820 organisations and were
supported by over 8500 websites.
The Climate Strike Movement is dubbed as the
most significant global protest action (350.Org
Team September 28, 2019) even larger than the
protest against the Iraq war and was supported by
celebrities, NGOs, trade unions, universities and
global companies such as Amazon. At the local
level, it was supported by community groups and
churches, students and the youth. Students were
attracted to the efforts because it enabled them to
strike from school to demand urgent and decisive
actions on the global climate crisis.
The objective of this case is to present a brief
historical progression on the rise of Greta
Thunberg and her climate strike movement. It
explores the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities
and threats of the Climate Strike Movement,
extracts lessons learned to earlier environmental
activities and discusses strategies for the development of the movement in the future.
The Rise of Greta Thunberg
Greta Thunberg became the world’s most highprofile climate champion campaigning for action
to tackle the climate change crisis and was Time
Magazine’s personality of the year for 2019. Sir
David Attenborough, internationally renowned
environmentalist, has stated that she has “woken
up the world” to climate change, achieving what
many of those who have been working on the
issues for the past 20 years had failed to deliver
BBC (2019).
Greta was born in Stockholm, Sweden, in
2003. Her actions to embark on climate strikes
were driven by record heatwaves and forest fires
that struck Sweden and the rest of Europe in
2018. She started her protest at the Swedish
Parliament to raise awareness of politicians and
to get them to take action to address the climate
change crisis facing her country. After a photo of
a lone child protester was posted on Facebook by
a Swedish eco-warrior, she captured the imagination of the country that has been struck by heatwaves and wildfires in the hottest summer
recorded. She said young people are rallying to
fight climate change because their age leaves
them with the most to lose from damages to the
planet (Associated Press 2018).
I am doing this because you adults are shitting on
my future…I am doing this because nobody else is
doing anything. It is my moral responsibility to do
what I can. I want the politicians to prioritise the
climate question, focus on the climate and treat it
like a crisis. Greta Thurnburg (Guardian, 2019).
Her protest actions have propelled her as the
global poster girl for climate change and the
expansion of a worldwide movement, which
empowers people to stand up for the phasing out
of fossil fuels and the curbing of greenhouse gas
emissions. Although the Climate Strike
Movement has emerged as a new global phenom4 The Emergence of New Climatic Storms: Global Perspective on the Application…
Movement is a new phenomenon and needs a
conceptual framework to allow researchers to
conduct future research to understand it.
The second part of this chapter utilises the
new conceptual framework on youth climate
change adaptation on the Youth Employment and
Entrepreneurship Project (YEEP) in Sierra
Leone, a least developing country (LDC) in West
Africa.
The Youth Shall Lead Them: Greta
Thunberg and the Climate Action
Strike Movement
Greta Thunberg, a Swedish teenager and climate
change activist, inspired the mobilisation of millions of youth across the globe to participate in
the Global Climate Strike Movement. She established the Friday for Future Movement, which
evolved into the Youth Strike 4 Climate
Movement. The aim of setting up the climate
movement was to call on politicians and global
leaders to take climate change seriously and to
disrupt businesses all over the world as a strategy
to raise awareness on the issues regarding the
impact of climate change. The September 2019
climate strike event was planned to incorporate
with a UN Emergency Climate Change Action
summit held in New York. Climate strike activities were organised in over 185 countries, in more
than 6100 locations across the globe, and involved
over 7 million people. Climate actions took place
in 185 countries involving 73 trade unions, over
3000 businesses and 820 organisations and were
supported by over 8500 websites.
The Climate Strike Movement is dubbed as the
most significant global protest action (350.Org
Team September 28, 2019) even larger than the
protest against the Iraq war and was supported by
celebrities, NGOs, trade unions, universities and
global companies such as Amazon. At the local
level, it was supported by community groups and
churches, students and the youth. Students were
attracted to the efforts because it enabled them to
strike from school to demand urgent and decisive
actions on the global climate crisis.
The objective of this case is to present a brief
historical progression on the rise of Greta
Thunberg and her climate strike movement. It
explores the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities
and threats of the Climate Strike Movement,
extracts lessons learned to earlier environmental
activities and discusses strategies for the development of the movement in the future.
The Rise of Greta Thunberg
Greta Thunberg became the world’s most highprofile climate champion campaigning for action
to tackle the climate change crisis and was Time
Magazine’s personality of the year for 2019. Sir
David Attenborough, internationally renowned
environmentalist, has stated that she has “woken
up the world” to climate change, achieving what
many of those who have been working on the
issues for the past 20 years had failed to deliver
BBC (2019).
Greta was born in Stockholm, Sweden, in
2003. Her actions to embark on climate strikes
were driven by record heatwaves and forest fires
that struck Sweden and the rest of Europe in
2018. She started her protest at the Swedish
Parliament to raise awareness of politicians and
to get them to take action to address the climate
change crisis facing her country. After a photo of
a lone child protester was posted on Facebook by
a Swedish eco-warrior, she captured the imagination of the country that has been struck by heatwaves and wildfires in the hottest summer
recorded. She said young people are rallying to
fight climate change because their age leaves
them with the most to lose from damages to the
planet (Associated Press 2018).
I am doing this because you adults are shitting on
my future…I am doing this because nobody else is
doing anything. It is my moral responsibility to do
what I can. I want the politicians to prioritise the
climate question, focus on the climate and treat it
like a crisis. Greta Thurnburg (Guardian, 2019).
Her protest actions have propelled her as the
global poster girl for climate change and the
expansion of a worldwide movement, which
empowers people to stand up for the phasing out
of fossil fuels and the curbing of greenhouse gas
emissions. Although the Climate Strike
Movement has emerged as a new global phenom4 The Emergence of New Climatic Storms: Global Perspective on the Application…