16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg was profiled in TIME's biannual list of "Next Generation Leaders," which will be publicly available on Friday.
The backdrop: In March, Thunberg led the largest and most widespread demonstration on climate change since the run-up to the Paris climate summit in 2014 and 2015. Organizers estimate that 1.6 million people — most of them students — in more than 100 countries participated.
“I believe that once we start behaving as if we were in an existential crisis, then we can avoid a climate and ecological breakdown. But the opportunity to do so will not last for long. We have to start today.”
Thunberg in her TIME interview
The bottom line: "Thunberg’s main goal is for governments to reduce carbon emissions in line with the Paris Agreement, limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C over preindustrial levels," TIME magazine writes.
Go deeper: Thunberg tells EU lawmakers to focus more on climate instead of Brexit
