In her speech at the UN Climate Action Summit in 2019, Greta Thunberg masterfully critiques the actions or lack thereof of world leaders regarding climate change. In this rhetorical situation Greta exclaims, “This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you!” (NPR 2). In the four and a half minutes she is speaking, Greta Thunberg makes a persuasive argument to her intended audience. 

In order to discuss Greta’s 2019 UN Climate Action Summit Speech as a rhetorical situation and to fully analyze it, what a rhetorical situation consists of must be outlined. According to Bitzer’s “The Rhetorical Situation”, “the presence of rhetorical discourse obviously indicates the presence of a rhetorical situation” (Bitzer 1). Following Bitzer’s definition of a rhetorical situation, the situation must have an exigence, an audience, and constraints. The exigence is the issue or catalyst prompting the author of the text to utilize rhetoric to solve the said exigence. The audience in the rhetorical situation must be a group of people able to be persuaded by the rhetoric used in order to take some kind of action regarding the exigence of the rhetorical situation. The constraints in a rhetorical situation can be defined as anything that hinders either the author of the text of the rhetorical situation or anything that hinders the audience from having the desired effect of the text in the rhetorical situation. Some examples of constraints could be beliefs, religion, disabilities, socioeconomic status, or anything else that could impact the audience’s receptiveness to the text of the rhetorical situation. 

In relation to Greta Thunberg’s speech at the UN Climate Action Summit in 2019, the exigence is the lack of action and responsibility taken by world leaders to combat climate change. Thunberg specifies that “for more than 30 years, the science has been crystal clear” (NPR 8) and in an accusatory statement claims “if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil” (NPR 13). This exigence leads back to the growing and impending issue of climate change, inaction on the part of world leaders, governments, and large corporations, the fear of the future, and the young people who must bear the consequences. When discussing climate issues and the inaction or lack of accountability, it is vital to consider that “[m]easurement is a first step toward accountability, and measurement needs constant improvement. But measurement in the absence of accountability is meaningless, especially in situations where many people are skeptical of cause and effect” (Kamarck). The younger generation’s fear of the future of their home planet can be summarized by Greta’s stinging section of her speech where she says, “You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!” (NPR 4). 

The rhetorical audience in the text of Greta Thunberg’s Speech at the UN Climate Action Summit in 2019 would be the members of the UN and different representatives of world governments and world leaders who can implement the changes to combat climate change that she feels are necessary. They are her rhetorical situation’s audience because they have the potential to be persuaded by her speech and to implement change. She points out the fact that “This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you!” (NPR 2). Her claim here is that she should not be lecturing the group who is supposed to be making the world a better place for her generation. They should be making the changes on their own and the fact that a young girl has to leave school to lecture government officials so that they will value the planet they live on more than economic growth is embarrassing for them. 

There are many constraints involved in this specific rhetorical situation. First, Greta Thunberg herself must be examined for constraints that could impact her speech. Her disability must be taken into account and how that can be both a negative and a positive constraint. “Inspiring what has become a worldwide movement no doubt requires a degree of “thinking outside the box,” a common attribute among folks with Aspie (a more feel-good way of saying Asperger’s) profiles.” (Hou). Her age is also a constraint that should be considered. While some of Greta’s audience may look upon her condescendingly due to the fact that she is a member of a much younger generation than their own, others may find it inspiring and it might prompt them to listen to her more intently. 

Additionally, the constraints of Greta’s rhetorical audience must be considered. Since the majority of the UN and government officials, world leaders, and politicians attending the Climate Action Summit are considerably older than Greta, there is a generational disconnect in ideas, beliefs, feelings toward religion, and priorities. While Greta is aware that she and many others will populate the planet for the next several decades, many of the members of her audience will not live to see the impacts of climate change in the next thirty to fifty years. The priorities of her audience members may involve economic growth, stock market growth, innovation, and what they think will benefit their nation or group they are representing most. 

Greta Thunberg utilizes many different forms of rhetoric to propose a fitting response to the situation. Her repetition of the phrase “How dare you!” (NPR) emphasizes the rage and frustration she has towards the exigence of the rhetorical situation. Not only does she appeal to the emotions of her audience members through charged language and accusatory statements like “How dare you!” (NPR), but she also utilizes logic and science to appeal to the opposing side of her rhetorical audience. She mentions the science behind the exigence and why action must be taken. 

The way in which Thunberg gives her speech orally due to her autism adds to her rhetoric. She is very unapologetic and angsty in the way she speaks to these world leaders, which is shocking. To watch a very young, petite girl speaking to world leaders using phrases such as “How dare you” (NPR) and gives her audience of powerful world leaders grief. Her clear and almost angry speaking voice adds to the language she chooses to use and acts as a certain kind of rhetoric in itself. 

In conclusion, Greta Thunberg masterfully critiques the actions or lack thereof of world leaders regarding climate change. In this rhetorical situation Greta’s exigence is the growing fear of the future young generations are experiencing due to the inaction of world leaders to combat climate change. Her rhetorical audience are the world leaders, politicians, and government officials at the UN Climate Action Summit in 2019 because she would like them to respond to her plea for help. Finally, her constraints include her autism, her age, her audience’s biases, beliefs, socioeconomic status, and the generational gap between them.

Works Cited

Bitzer, Lloyd F. “The Rhetorical Situation.” Philosophy & Rhetoric, vol. 25, 1992, pp. 1–14. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40237697. 

Hou, Chia-Yi. “How Greta Thunberg’s Autism Helped Make Her the World’s Most Important Person for 2020.” TheHill, 21 Jan. 2020, https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/468091-opinion-activist-greta-thunbergs-autism-doesnt-hold-her-back. 

Kamarck, Elaine. “The Challenging Politics of Climate Change.” Brookings, Brookings, 23 Sept. 2019, https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-challenging-politics-of-climate-change/. 

Staff, NPR. “Transcript: Greta Thunberg’s Speech at the U.N. Climate Action Summit.” NPR, NPR, 23 Sept. 2019, https://www.npr.org/2019/09/23/763452863/transcript-greta-thunbergs-speech-at-the-u-n-climate-action-summit.