Greta Thunberg: A Year to Change the World

People say a lot of things about me...

Greta... you know Greta?

People call me a brat... An idiot...

‐ And yet, for reasons I don't understand...

people listen when I talk.

You are listening to me right now.

Greta! Greta! Greta!

‐ But I don't want that.

I don't want you to listen to me.

I want you to listen to the science.

‐ The science is very clear.

This is not someone else's problem.

We all need to act now.

This series follows Greta Thunberg

on an extraordinary year

in her mission to tackle climate change.

‐ I've been going halfway around the world the wrong way.

She took a year off school to explore our changing world.

With leading climate experts.

This year we had the fastest melt rate

we've ever measured: six meters of ice down

Investigating whether science can help protect our future.

From technology...

‐ We could store all the emissions we could potentially imagine.

To nature.

‐ It could reduce methane by 40% overnight.

Is it really that simple?

‐ The forest is not a vacuum cleaner

that just sucks CO2 from the air.

And how we can all play our part.

‐ We should spend this time on actual solutions people could do.

We should be hopeful.

But hope doesn't come from words.

Hope only comes from action.

Greta took her protest to the global stage.

‐ World leaders are behaving like children.

So it falls on us to be the adults in the room.

Seeing the world, gave Greta a new level of understanding.

You try to imagine yourself in that situation...

how difficult it might have been.

But it became a story that no one could have predicted.

‐ The risk level has risen.

The coronavirus continues to spread.

COVID‐19 brought life to a standstill.

‐ I have contracted the coronavirus.

And gave Greta an even greater challenge.

Can she convince a world reeling from one crisis

to face another?

‐ COVID‐19 has really given the world

a tremendous opportunity to reset.

‐ How we address the climate crisis

will determine what the future of life on Earth looks like.

We can act, but we don't have time to wait.

From the United Nations to the US Congress,

Greta Thunberg is gaining international acclaim

for her fight to stop climate change.

Just four weeks ago,

at the start of her year out of school,

Greta was in New York addressing the United Nations.

‐ And if you choose to fail us,

I say we will never forgive you.

How dare you!

Now she and her father, Svante,

are heading far beyond the glare of the world's media

to the Canadian Rockies,

to see evidence of climate change.

But first she's going north to Edmonton,

to address a climate strike in the capital

of the oil‐rich province of Alberta.

Are you writing your speech?

‐ No. It's, it's already done. I'm just reading through it

to make sure that I don't want to make any last minute changes,

which I always do.

‐ Maybe I should go in advance with the big bag?

We do everything together, so much,

but this part we don't do together.

‐ No. I don't want him at the marches.

Father. Supportive father.

That's, that's the role I play.

First time she spoke in public, I, I was terrified,

because of her autism.

Would she run away, would she start to cry,

would she go silent, would she...

Would she do something that would hurt her?

Will this be too warm?

Uh, no. I, I'd say no.

And take the stairs, 'cause the lift takes forever.

See you down there.

It's barely a year since Greta first skipped school,

and started a lone protest outside the Swedish parliament,

demanding action on climate change.

‐ My name is Greta, and I am 15 years old,

and I am school striking for the climate.

We will not stop.

This is our future, and this is our choice.

Since then, her act of defiance

has inspired the young,

captured the attention of world leaders,

and snowballed into a mass movement.

My favorite story growing up was

The Emperor's New Clothes.

The emperor is naked, and everyone just pretends he isn't.

The only one who dares to question

this collective lie is a child.

That story really is the story of, of ourselves.

Of our society. Of how the world looks now.

We climate activists are that child,

saying that the emperor is naked.

The envoy with, uh, Greta, is on its way.

When someone dares to say that out loud,

that changes something.

Today is Friday,

and as always, we are on Climate Strike.

We teenagers are not scientists,

nor are we politicians,

but it seems many of us understand the science,

because we have done our homework.

People think that I am an angry teenager

who screams at world leaders.

That's, like, the picture people have of me.

That's not who I am.

We are doing this because our future is at stake,

and we want the people in power

to unite behind the science.

We say, yeah, we're going to limit

the global average temperature rise to 1.5.

That's what it says at the Paris Agreements.

But then we, we just continue like before,

which will be catastrophic.

That is what I'm trying to highlight.

So thank you, and continue.

Never give up.

We stand together.

In 2015, 196 states

signed up to the Paris Agreement

to limit global temperature rise to well below two degrees Celsius,

and pursue efforts to keep it to 1.5 degrees.

Greta's mission is to hold them to the agreement.

But not everyone here supports her message.

Here in a province that relies on resource revenue,

the sound of opposition rings loud.

‐ We want to show Canada, and, and Greta

that we're very environmentally friendly

in Alberta with our oil patch.

We're environmental leaders in, in the whole world.

Well, we're, uh, just making a little noise.

Let people know that Alberta isn't about to give up on our oil sands,

our oil gas sector.

We need jobs in Alberta.

Do we need Greta? ‐ Pardon me? No!

The Canadian oil and gas industries

employ over 170,000 people,

and contribute over 70 billion dollars a year to the country.

But it's also the largest contributor

to Canada's greenhouse gas emissions.

A potential trade‐off between the strength of the economy

and the health of the planet.

It's a story repeated around the world.

This is what it's all about.

This is the... the center of the heart of it.

The thing that drives everything,

and that drives the economy.

People won't see this.

They won't see how the... this oil is extracted,

how... where their petrol, or where their fuel comes from.

And yet it is destroying so many people's lives,

and so much natural habitat.

Something definitely needs to change. Something drastic.

And yet, I don't know how this industry will be able to continue

if we take the action required.

But it's... it, it has to change.

Things have to change.

Average temperatures in Canada

have risen by 1.7 degrees Celsius.

That's twice as fast as the rest of the world.

One point seven degrees since the 1940s

might not seem significant.

But to understand the impact that can have,

Greta is spending the next week

heading to three key locations in North America.

First she's off to Jasper National Park

in Canada's Rocky Mountains.

It's home to pristine pine forests.

But huge tracts are dying.

Greta's come to meet biologist Brenda Shepherd,

to find out what's causing this drastic change.

What kind of different animals are there here usually?

When I walked down here on Friday,

I saw a female grizzly bear with her three cubs

on this trail.

Scientists have discovered

that a rise in temperature

has allowed a pest to flourish and attack these trees,

leaving them defenseless.

‐ And what is this coloring on the side?

So this tree is all red and dead,

and it was infested by mountain pine beetle.

It eventually kills.

The females burrow in to‐‐ under the bark,

and then they start to eat the tissue,