Merkel says Greta Thunberg 'drove us' to move on climate change

German Chancellor Angela Merkel conceded Friday that her government was driven to act faster on climate change by young activists like teenaged Greta Thunberg, who was speaking at rally in Berlin the same day.

"They certainly drove us to speed up" efforts to change policy, said Merkel at a press conference while nearby in the German capital the 16-year-old Swedish activist addressed the latest "Fridays for Future" rally.

Thundering Thunberg

Thunberg, meanwhile, addressing student activists who have regularly skipped school to protest, made another passionate appeal to their elders to urgently act on climate change.

"We need to make sure that people save the world and save humankind," she said about global warming which is melting ice caps and glaciers, raising ocean levels and exacerbating extreme weather events.

"This situation is so strange -- that the adults do not dare to take responsibility, that it is the young people and children who need to take responsibility, that young people need to sacrifice their education in order to protect their future."

A protester holds up a sign reading "How did we become so stupid " during a "Fridays for Future" demonstration.

Weather 'unsettling people'

Climate change has become a top public concern in Germany, with the opposition Greens party shooting up to poll neck-and-neck with Merkel's conservatives earlier this year.

Merkel said that Germany's recent "exceptional weather conditions" were "unsettling people and showing the cost of non-action or insufficient action" to combat the problem.

Germany, Europe's biggest economy, has long promoted clean renewables such as solar and wind while phasing out nuclear power.

The chancellor also acknowledged that the Greens party is currently "very strong".

But she said that this was forcing her party "to show that we are meeting our climate change targets, yet are also committed to innovation and committed to economic progress".

Agence France-Presse