Teen Climate Activist Greta Thunberg: 'This Is Not Over Yet, Not Even Close'

Teen Climate Activist Greta Thunberg: ‘This Is Not Over Yet, Not Even Close’

Political Climate speaks to activist Greta Thunberg and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger at the R20 Austrian World Summit in Vienna.

Julia Pyper May 31, 2019

Julia Pyper

Senior Editor
Greentech Media

Julia Pyper is a Senior Editor at Greentech Media covering the energy transition. She is also the host and producer of the Political Climate podcast. She previously reported for E&E Publishing, and has covered clean energy and climate change issues across the U.S. and abroad, including in India, Haiti, Israel and the Maldives. She holds degrees from McGill and Columbia Universities. Find her on Twitter @JMPyper.

Teen climate activist Greta Thunberg was all alone when she started protesting the lack of political action on climate change last year outside of the Swedish parliament. Today, the Friday climate strikes inspired by Thunberg are drawing out more than 1 million young people around the world.

But as she tells Political Climate: The fight is “not over yet.”

This week’s Political Climate podcast was recorded at the R20 Austrian World Summit in Vienna, where former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger teamed up with Thunberg to call attention to the climate crisis. We sit down with Schwarzenegger to get his reaction to meeting Greta. Plus, we speak with the 16-year-old Swedish protester about the impact of the student strikes.

We also discuss takeaways from the recent EU Parliament elections, where Green Party members saw big gains in some of Europe’s largest countries. Could these results foreshadow a green wave in the next U.S. election?