by S. Smith, Oct 31, 2022 in ClimateChangeDispatch
Greta Thunberg has described climate summits such as the COP27 conference taking place in Egypt next week as a “scam” that is “failing” humanity and the planet by not leading to “major changes.”
The Swedish activist said people in positions of power were using the high-profile gatherings for attention and were “greenwashing, lying, and cheating”. [bold, links added]
“As it is now, COPs not are not really going to lead to any major changes, unless of course, we use them as an opportunity to mobilize,” she said on stage at the Southbank Centre’s London Literature Festival on Sunday where she was promoting her new work The Climate Book, an anthology of essays on the climate crisis from over one hundred experts.
Activists must try to “make people realize what a scam this is and realize that these systems are failing us”, she added.
This week the UN warned that there is “no clear pathway” in place to limit global heating to 1.5C – a target from the 2016 Paris Agreement – as only a handful of countries had strengthened their pledges to take action.
In a wide-ranging keynote address and on-stage interview with the journalist Samira Ahmed, Ms. Thunberg spoke on everything from politics and activism to how to deal with eco-anxiety.
Asked for her thoughts on the controversial tactics of groups such as Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil, who have recently made headlines, including by throwing soup over Van Gough’s Sunflowers, the teenager said there was a broad range of actions so [she] couldn’t generalize, but that she thought it was “reasonable” to expect climate activists to try different kinds of actions.
“We’re right now in a very desperate position and many people are becoming desperate and are trying to find new methods because we realize that what we’ve been doing up until now has not done the trick,” she told Ahmed.
As for upsetting people, she said “harming people is one thing and making someone annoyed is a different thing.”
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See also : Greta Thunberg Spurns COP27, Lays Out Plans for World Domination