Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro slammed climate activist Greta Thunberg on Tuesday, calling the Swedish teenager a “brat” for her efforts to raise awareness of the need to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Bloomberg News reported that Bolsonaro slammed Thunberg’s regular presence in the media after he was questioned about the killing of two indigenous leaders in regions beset by illegal logging.
“It is staggering, the amount of coverage the press gives that brat,” he said.
Following the Brazilian president’s statement, Thunberg added the Portuguese word for “brat” to her Twitter bio.
The 16-year-old’s activism on the issue of climate change gained notoriety earlier this year following her successful inspiration of school strikes in her home country of Sweden and elsewhere. She has also been vocal on the need for conversations about climate change to involve indigenous people, a controversial topic in Brazil.
Bolsonaro is not the first world leader whose criticism Thunberg has appropriated into her Twitter profile this year. After President Trump sarcastically called her “a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future” in September, Thunberg made the phrase her Twitter bio.
Brazil’s government has faced heavy criticism in recent months over a spike in illegal logging and habitat destruction in the Amazon rainforest, where many rare species and indigenous tribes live.
Bolsonaro has blamed the problem on foreign governments, and in November even accused actor Leonardo DiCaprio without evidence of paying an organization to set fires in the rainforest.