The climate kids: 'Don't call me Greta!'

’'I shouldn't have to be doing this. I should be a, quote, unquote, normal kid going to school and not having to worry about this. But, the government has left us no choice. The last generations have left us no choice. We need to stand up."

"My name is Ambrose Hayes. I'm 15 years old and I'm here today because I'm fed up with the Australian government's inaction on the climate crisis. We need to act now before it's too late."

This is how Ambrose Hayes spends his Fridays.

Protesting against the federal government’s plans to invest in carbon-emitting projects as part of Australia's economic recovery from a tough year.

But Hayes and many Australian youngsters like him say the government isn’t taking enough notice.

"But right now, we can't vote so they don't want to listen to us because of that. But the thing is, this is going to affect us and by them not taking action, it's just going to lead to more costs in the future for lack of action compared to how much we pay now to take action. The politicians are just frustrating most of the time because they just completely ignore us and just avoid questions that we ask them. "

Hayes and seven other students launched a class action to stop the expansion of Whitehaven Coal’s Vickery mine.

All the while, he should have been at school.

Just like his counterpart in Hong Kong – 11-year-old Lance Lau - who organized a beach cleanup as part of the Fridays for Future movement…

And India’s eight-year-old Licipriya Kangujam…

And many others like them around the world.

"I want every national and international media to write our real name while writing our story because we have our own identity, own name, own country and own story. If you call me Greta of India then you are not writing a story, you are deleting a story."

The world-wide student strike movement was started in August 2018, when the then 15-year-old Greta Thunberg began protesting outside the Swedish parliament on school days.

She has since been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

"The climate crisis has never once been treated as a crisis and unless we treat it as a crisis we won't be able to so-called 'solve it'."

JOURNALIST ASKING: "Would you like to see more scientists, more activists in the media. What would you like to see?"

"Just telling the truth as it is."