Teens pledge not to have kids until governments take climate change seriously

A young climate change activist has vowed not to have children until governments take serious action to tackle the problem.

Eighteen-year-old Emma Lim, a student at McGill University in Montreal, launched the #NoFutureNoChildren movement.

Because of the crisis the planet is currently facing, she does not believe that it is fair to bring children into a world that could be ravaged by climate change - and other teens from the US and Canada have taken the pledge too.

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This comes in the wake of the devastating wildfires in the Amazon, which were so bad that enemy tribes united to try and solve the problem, and news that similar fires in Borneo have forced orangutans out of their natural habitat.

"I have always, always wanted to be a mom, for as long as I can remember," Lim told Insider. "But I will not bring a child into a world where they will not be safe. I would like to see the government develop a comprehensive plan to stay below 1.5 degrees [Celsius] of warming."

In the video, an orangutan tries to fight the bulldozer destroying its habitat: 

"When you're young you believe that your government will fix things, and so I joined the green team and we worked on recycling and I figured that everything would be okay," the 18-year-old continued. "But that trust in your leaders erodes over time."

Pictured below is an aerial view of the devastating fires in the Amazon:

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"I launched the pledge because I wanted other people to understand how the fear of climate is so unquestioned in my generation. It's something everybody feels. Where in my parent's or grandparent's generation, believing in climate change is often a matter of opinion and not survival," Lim explained.

She cited the 2018 United Nations report which revealed the impacts of global warming above 1.5 degrees [Celsius].

On top of encouraging governments to halt the devastating effects of global warming, Lim also hopes her pledge will encourage them to take action to help those affected by the existing damage including agricultural workers.

The 18-year-old pointed out that her pledge has already had an impact on how the older generation feel about young people's attitudes to climate change, saying that it had a "massive effect" on her parents.

"For the first time, the impact of climate change became real to them. You read about hurricane stories and heatwaves, but the massive, most catastrophic events haven't touched us yet in Canada. There's flooding but it hasn't really affected my immediate family. But this hurts; this is something tangible."