'We can't wait for people like me to grow up and be the ones in charge,' climate activist Greta warns

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has a simple wish for the future, she just wants everything fixed.

Sixteen-year-old Thunberg spoke to Reuters underneath a stage in Rome's Piazza del Popolo on Friday before she addressed thousands of Italian youth on the climate crisis.

"I think what I want for the future is just that we fix everything and that we fix the climate and the ecological crisis so that everyone lives in peace, I guess, very naive," she said, shrugging her shoulders.

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Thunberg has inspired a movement of children against global warming but she says her fight is also seen in small changes she has made in her personal life. She no longer takes planes or goes shopping.

"I do many small things just to change my habit like I have become vegan, I have stopped flying, I have shop-stopped and small things like that," she said, patiently straining to hear questions over the noise of the speakers above.

The teenager has come in for some criticism with some saying she is stealing the limelight away from her cause.

"I mean I don't enjoy attention but I enjoy making a difference," she said saying she tries to make sure the climate crisis is always the focus.

But she warned the world did not have enough time to wait until she was grown up to change things, time was running out and politicians need to act now to save the planet.

"When I am grown up when I am old enough to become a politician, I mean it will be too late to act because we need to act now," she said.

"We can't wait for people like me to grow up and become the ones in charge," she warned.

Thunberg has been nominated for the Nobel peace prize, has addressed the United Nations Climate Conference and spoken at the European Parliament. But asked if she had plans to address the United Nations in New York, she said:

"I guess I would have to take a boat if I were to go to North America, so that would take a while."