Teen climate warrior Greta Thunberg to be awarded 'Game Changer Of The Year' by GQ

The biggest and youngest name in climate change activism today, Greta Thunberg, is going to be presented with the first-ever ‘Game Changer Award’ at the GQ Men of the Year Awards 2019, GQ announced this week. “The ‘Game Changer Of The Year’ Award has been created especially for Greta Thunberg,” GQ’s Editor-In-Chief, Dylan Jones,  said in a statement. “Her fearless dedication to raising awareness of the global climate change crisis makes her the absolute embodiment of this award and on behalf of GQ we couldn’t be prouder to celebrate her at the upcoming GQ Men Of The Year Awards.” Greta tweeted her thanks to GQ: “I am very grateful and this award is for everyone in the Fridays For Future movement, everyone whose school is striking for the climate. We all deserve this award because together we have accomplished so much. So thank you to everyone who has been school striking as well.” [caption id=“attachment_7164231” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”] Greta Thunberg on the cover of GQ magazine’s Special Issue for the 22nd Annual GQ Awards. Image: British GQ[/caption] On 13 August, Thunberg set sail across the Atlantic to attend the UN Climate Summit in New York in September. Of late, Greta has been the target of harsh criticism, but views it as proof of her effectiveness. A schoolgoer, in August last year, she decided to skip school and strike for climate action outside the Swedish Parliament, where she would be noticed by politicians and media, alike. Thunberg sparked a global movement in the process – inspiring 1.6 million people and counting, from 133 countries, to take to streets and voice their protest against climate inaction. Thunberg has been on the cover of TIME and GQ magazine, addressed the United Nations, Davos, the French and British parliaments, met US President Obama and been **nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize** for her activism**.** Today, a year after that first public protest, Greta Thunberg believes that her uncompromising message is getting through — even if action remains slow or thin on the ground. “The debate is shifting. I feel like people are taking this more urgently, people are starting to be more aware, slowly,” she told AFP during her sail across the Atlantic. [caption id=“attachment_6653451” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”] Greta Thunberg looks powerful on the cover of TIME Magazine’s 27 May Edition. Image: TIME[/caption] Thunberg, who has never previously sailed, will be aboard the sailboat for two weeks, along with her father Svante and a filmmaker. “It just shows how impossible it is to live sustainably today — it’s absurd that you have to sail across the Atlantic Ocean like this to get there with no emissions,” Thunberg said in the English port of Plymouth. “But I feel like since I’m one of the few people in the world who can actually do this I want to take that opportunity to do it.”

"I might feel a bit sea sick and it's not going to be comfortable"

Climate change activist Greta Thunberg will spend two weeks travelling across the North Atlantic on a boat to attend a crucial climate change conference in New York

[tap to expand] https://t.co/e9XrVVjBhN pic.twitter.com/NMxVM9abSV

— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) August 13, 2019

Thunberg said she has no plans to meet with President Donald Trump during her time in the US. “I can’t say anything that he hasn’t already heard,” she says. Her goal, whether Trump endorses it or doesn’t, is to ensure “that the climate crisis is being taken as seriously as it should be taken and that people really start to understand”. With inputs from AFP