Along with other 3, climate activist Greta Thunberg, 16 have been named as the winners of the 2019 Right Livelihood Award, which is known as the “alternative Nobel Prize”. The award comes with a cash award of 1 million Swedish crowns ($103,000).Thunberg is also among the 301 candidates nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. The winner will be announced in the first week of October. If Thunberg wins the Nobel Peace Prize, she would be the youngest recipient since Malala Yousafzai, who was 17 years old when she received the prize.
In a statement, the Right Livelihood Foundation said that she won the award “for inspiring and amplifying political demands for urgent climate action reflecting scientific facts.” In response she stated “I’m deeply grateful for being one of the recipients of this great honor. But of course, whenever I receive an award, it is not me who is the winner. I am part of a global movement of school children, youth and adults of all ages who have decided to act in defense of our living planet. I share this award with them.”
Greta Thunberg caught the attention of authorities when she started weekly school protests outside Swedish parliament a year ago before it snowballed into a worldwide movement. The award comes days after she gave a fiery speech directed at world leaders at the United Nations Climate Summit.
As fighting back tears she quoted that “People are dying and dying ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is the money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth”.
Any national member of government can nominate an individual for the heralded peace award, according to the Nobel Prize organization. Because of her leadership in the fight against climate change Freddy André Ovstegard and two other Norwegian lawmakers nominated her.
Other two winners of Right Livelihood Award are Brazilian indigenous leader Davi Kopenawa, Chinese women’s rights lawyer Guo Jianmei and Western Sahara human rights defender Aminatou Haidar.
Edited By: The World Women News
