‘I had singular focus’: 30 years on from Severn Cullis-Suzuki’s Earth Summit speech

The then 12-year-old had diplomats squirming in their seats when she berated them at the 1992 gathering

• Thirty years of climate summits: where have they got us?

Fidel Castro was there, along with George Bush, John Major and 100 other heads of state, billionaires and rock stars. But the biggest star of the 1992 Earth Summit was a young girl who delivered what would be known as the speech that silenced the world".

Severn Cullis-Suzuki was just 12 years old, and had set up a children's environment group in Vancouver with her nine-year-old sister Sarika and friends Vanessa Suttie, Morgan Geisler and Michelle Quigg. When they heard about the Rio meeting they pestered family and friends to raise the money to fly south, accompanied by her father, David Suzuki, one of Canada's leading geneticists. The group hired a small booth at a side event and set about ambushing anyone and everyone (I met them and was knocked out by their enthusiasm and intensity).