‘Blah blah blah’: Greta Thunberg slams leaders over climate crisis | climate crisis

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Greta Thunberg has criticized world leaders for their promises to tackle the climate emergency, calling them “blah, blah, blah.”

It quoted Boris Johnson’s comments: “This is not an expensive and politically correct act of rabbit cuddling,” and Narendra Modi: “Fighting climate change requires innovation, cooperation and willpower” but said science did not lie.

Carbon emissions are on course to rise 16% by 2030, according to the United Nations, rather than halving, the reduction needed to keep global heating below the internationally agreed limit of 1.5°C.

“Building back better. etc. etc. etc. green economy. etc. etc. etc. Net zero by 2050. Blah, blah, blah,” she said in a speech at the Youth4Climate Summit in Milan, Italy, on Tuesday. That’s 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.”

The Cop26 climate summit begins in Glasgow, UK, on ​​October 31, and all polluters must make even tougher emissions cut pledges to keep the 1.5°C target within reach.

“Of course we need a constructive dialogue,” said Thunberg, whose solo climate strike in 2018 sparked a movement of millions of young climate protesters. “But now they’ve had 30 years of gloom, and so-and-so, and where did that lead us? We can still change that situation – it’s totally possible. It will require big and drastic annual reductions in emissions. But not if things continue like today. Our leaders’ deliberate lack of Work is a betrayal towards all present and future generations.”

Research published Monday shows that children born today will be exposed to more extreme heat waves and other climate catastrophes over the course of their lives than their grandparents, even if nations live up to their current emissions pledges.

Officials from the United Nations, the United Kingdom and the United States have said that Cop26 will not achieve the breakthrough needed to meet the aspirations of the Paris Agreement but that the conference’s broader goal – to “keep 1.5C alive” – ​​is still possible.

Thunberg and Vanessa Nakate from Uganda and hundreds of other young people from around the world are attending the Youth4Climate Summit. It is hosted by the Italian government, the UK’s managing partner of Cop26.

The Youth Summit will consist of working groups of young people discussing how to increase their participation in decision-making, their role in helping to transform energy use, nature conservation and climate adaptation, and how education can create a climate-conscious society. It is based on the Youth Climate Summit held at the United Nations Headquarters in New York in 2019.

“They invite cherry-picked young people to meetings like this to pretend they are listening to us,” Thunberg said. “But they are clearly not listening to us. Our emissions are still rising. The science doesn’t lie.

We can no longer let the people in power decide what is politically possible. We can no longer let the people in power decide what hope is. Hope is not negative. Hope is not so and so. Hope is telling the truth. Hope takes action. And hope always comes from people.”

Large numbers of young climate protesters took to the streets Friday in nearly 100 countries around the world, including 100,000 in Berlin, where Thunberg spoke.

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