Swedish climate change activist Greta Thunberg branded the British government as one of the chief “climate villains” in the world, despite the UK only accounting for around one per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions.

Appearing at the Youth4Climate summit in Milan, Greta Thunberg cast her ire towards Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government, which is set to host the COP 26 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow next month.

Speaking to Sky News, the 18-year-old radical green activist claimed that Britain uses “creative carbon accounting” by not counting international shipping, air travel, or exported fossil fuels in its emissions reports.

“I find it very strange that they’re like, they are the ones who we’re supposed to look up to now, but they are objectively one of the biggest climate villains, which I find very strange,” she said.

“Of course, the climate crisis .. more or less it started in the UK since that’s where the industrial revolution started, we started to burn coal there, so of course the UK has an enormous historical responsibility when it comes to historic emissions since the climate crisis is a cumulative crisis,” Thunberg added.

The Sweedish teenager went on to chastise the British government for recently approving licenses for new oil and gas drilling operations in the North Sea ahead of the climate summit in November, saying: “That’s a textbook example of hypocrisy, alongside many other countries as well.”

In a speech to the Youth4Climate summit on Tuesday, Thunberg went on to mock climate change proposals from world leaders, including the Great Reset mantra “Build Back Batter” favoured by American President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has pledged to reduce carbon emissions to net-zero by the year 2050.

“Build back better. Blah, blah, blah. Green economy. Blah blah blah. Net-zero by 2050. Blah, blah, blah,” she said.

“This is all we hear from our so-called leaders. Words that sound great but so far have not led to action. Our hopes and ambitions drown in their empty promises.”

“Of course we need constructive dialogue. But they’ve now had 30 years of blah, blah, blah and where has that led us? We can still turn this around – it is entirely possible.

“It will take immediate, drastic annual emission reductions. But not if things go on like today. Our leaders’ intentional lack of action is a betrayal toward all present and future generations.”

The world’s largest polluter, Communist China, was notably absent from Thunberg’s remarks. The authoritarian regime emitted more than the entire developed world combined in 2019, according to a study from the Rhodium Group, which found that China accounted for 27 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gasses.

In comparison, the United States was responsible for 11 per cent and India at 6.6 per cent. The UK, for its part, accounts for around 1.1 per cent of global emissions.

In response to the remarks from Thunberg, a British government spokesman said: “Given the UK has cut emissions faster than any other major economy over the past three decades, and that we are the first country to legislate to reach net-zero by 2050, we stand by our assertion that we are leading the way in the fight against climate change.”

Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter at @KurtZindulka