World News | Climate activist Greta Thunberg won’t strike after graduation, but vows to protest

STOCKHOLM, June 9 (AP) Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg said Friday that she will no longer be able to skip class as a way to draw attention to climate change as she is about to graduate high school.

Thunberg, 20, started 2018 with Friday protests outside the Swedish parliament. Teenagers from around the world followed her lead, sparking an international student movement called Fridays for Future.

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Because she’s no longer a student, Thunberg noted that her future Friday events “technically” won’t be school strikes. But in a tweet, she vowed to continue protesting, saying: “The fight has just begun.”

“We’re still headed in the wrong direction, allowing those in power to make sacrifices,” Thunberg tweeted. “We are rapidly approaching potentially nonlinear ecological and climate tipping points beyond our control.”

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As a teenager, Thunberg was invited to speak to political and business leaders at United Nations conferences and the annual World Economic Forum in Davos. She was also named Time magazine’s youngest Person of the Year in 2019 and has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize several times.

During the last school strike outside parliament, Thunberg wore the cap typically worn by Swedish high school graduates and posed with a Swedish-language gesture.

American singer-songwriter and poet Patti Smith, who was in concert in Stockholm on Friday as part of a world tour, turned up at the demonstration and told Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter she had tears in her eyes when she saw Thunberg.

“This is Greta Thunberg, who faithfully participated in her Friday school strike for climate action. We thank and congratulate her on graduating today,” Smith wrote on Instagram.

Thunberg urged the media to focus on other young activists. Fridays for Future participants planned to protest outside the United Nations climate talks in Bonn, Germany on Friday, urging governments to do more to curb global warming. (Associated Press)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the body of content may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)