Greta Thunberg wins Time Magazine person of the year 2019 for climate change activism
GRETA Thunberg has been named Time magazine's youngest ever person of the year.
The teen climate activist, 16, has become a global icon for leading protests by schoolchildren.
In recent weeks the Swedish teen has sailed the Atlantic twice to attend climate summits and famously glared at Donald Trump at the UN.
She is pictured on the magazine cover standing on a rocky shore with splashing waves and the headline "The Power Of Youth".
Time editor Edward Felsenthal said: “For sounding the alarm about humanity’s predatory relationship with the only home we have ... for showing us all what it might look like when a new generation leads, Greta Thunberg is Time’s 2019 Person of the Year.”
Greta was quoted by the magazine saying: “I’d like to tell my grandchildren that we did everything we could.
"And we did it for them — for the generations to come.”
And she said on Twitter: "Wow, this is unbelievable! I share this great honour with everyone in the #FridaysForFuture movement and climate activists everywhere."
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The honour comes after the hot favourite to win the Nobel Peace Prize was snubbed in favour of Ethiopia's PM in October.
Time has chosen a Man Of The Year - later a woman and now person - since 1927 to highlight figures who have shaped global events.
The first ever winner, aviator Charles Lindbergh, then 25, was also the youngest winner before Greta.
Previous winners include Mahatma Gandhi, Josef Stalin, The Queen, Martin Luther King and Bill Gates.
Most US presidents have won it, either before or during their time in the White House.
Donald Trump was Person Of The Year in 2016, weeks after he was elected.
Today petite Greta, who turns 17 in January, stood on a box to make a speech at the COP25 climate summit in Madrid.
She accused politicians and businessmen of using "creative PR" to duck their responsibilities and ";not behaving as if we are in an emergency".
She stormed: "The biggest danger is not inaction; the real danger is when politicians and CEOs are making it look like real action is happening, when in fact almost nothing is being done apart from clever accounting and creative PR."
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Greta has previously blasted world leaders for failing her generation and demanded immediate action to tackle the global climate crisis.
Brazil's president called her a "brat" and Jeremy Clarkson told her to "shut up and go back to school".
The movement inspired by Greta has seen thousands of schoolchildren bunking off to march through the streets in Britain and around the world.
