“I wouldn’t have wasted my time on Trump,” says Greta Thunberg

LONDON (Reuters): Teenage climate change activist Greta Thunberg said on Monday that talking to US President Donald Trump at a United Nations summit on global warming would have been a waste of time since he would not have paid any attention.

In an interview with BBC radio’s Today programme, for which she was the guest editor on Monday, Thunberg also said she regarded personal attacks on her as funny and that she hoped to go back to having a normal life. 

Swedish teen environmental activist Greta Thunberg speaks at a climate change rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, US 8 November - Reuters

A video of the 16-year-old Swedish campaigner giving Trump what media described as a “death stare” at a UN climate summit in New York in September went viral on social media. Trump has questioned climate science and is pulling the United States out of the 2015 Paris Agreement on global warming.

Asked what she would have said to the president if they had spoken, Thunberg said: “Honestly, I don’t think I would have said anything because obviously he’s not listening to scientists and experts, so why would he listen to me? So I probably wouldn’t have said anything, I wouldn’t have wasted my time,” she said.

This month Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro called Thunberg “a brat”. Trump has said on Twitter she needs to work on her anger management problem.

“Those attacks are just funny because they obviously don’t mean anything,” she said. “I guess of course it means something – they are terrified of young people bringing change which they don’t want – but that is just proof that we are actually doing something and that they see us as some kind of threat.”