Hundreds of thousands of people joined teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg for a march in Montreal Friday, part of a second wave of global protests demanding action on climate change.
Thunberg responded to critics, including U.S. President Donald Trump, saying she doesn’t “understand why grown-ups would choose to mock children and teenagers for just communicating and acting on the science when they could do something good instead.”
Without mentioning Trump by name, Thunberg said, “We’ve become too loud for people to handle so people want to silence us.”
She called on world leaders to do more for the environment, following a meeting earlier Friday with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
“My message to all the politicians around the world is the same,” she said. “Just listen and act on the current best available science.”
“He (Trudeau) is of course obviously not doing enough, but this is just a huge problem, this is a system that is wrong,” she said.
Trudeau earlier praised Thunberg’s activism saying, “She is the voice of a generation.”
Protests also took place Friday across Europe and Asia, with organizers saying 200,000 people, mainly youths, joined a march in Milan and another 100,000 in Rome.
Protesters gathered in a host of countries, including India, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Austria and Germany.
The demonstrations come a week after millions of youths and adults rallied worldwide ahead of the U.N. summit in New York.