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Greta Thunberg rejects U.S. Treasury chief's degree dig

Greta Thunberg joined students as she took her climate strike to Davos on Friday (January 24), after earlier defending herself from comments made by U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

On Thursday (January 23) Mnuchin was asked about Thunberg's calls to divest from fossil fuels.

He told the Davos panel that she should study economics and then quote "she can come back and explain that to us."

It came just two days after U.S. President Donald Trump and Thunberg sparred indirectly at the Davos summit.

(SOUNDBITE) (English) CLIMATE ACTIVIST GRETA THUNBERG, SAYING:

JOURNALIST: "Greta, I wonder how it felt to be publicly insulted by the American President and the U.S. Treasury Secretary. What effect does that have on you?"

"Of course, no effect. We are being criticized like that all the time and of course if we were to care about that then we wouldn't be able to do what we do."

This year the annual meeting of business leaders in the Swiss ski resort of Davos put climate change centre stage,

rolling out the red carpet for Thunberg and calling on firms to set net zero carbon goals.

Her and her fellow climate activists are calling for action - not words:

(SOUNDBITE) (English) CLIMATE ACTIVIST GRETA THUNBERG, SAYING:

"Before we came here we had a few demands for this WEF (World Economic Forum) and of course those demands have been completely ignored but we expected nothing less because as I said as long as the science is being ignored."