“Nothing has been done” for the world’s climate despite speech after speech in favour of the environment, climate activist Greta Thunberg noted on Tuesday, urging media, global political leaders and the world business elite to do more.
Speaking on a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, dominated this year by the issue of global warming, Thunberg noted that while climate and environment have become topical issues, in practice “nothing has been done … the global emissions of CO2 have not been reduced.”
“If we are to have a 67% chance of limiting the global average temperature rise to below 1.5˚C, we had, on January 1, 2018, about 420 gigatons of CO2 left to emit,” she said.
The young Swedish climate campaigner stressed that she had been repeating those numbers in almost every speech but did not think she had “once seen any media outlet or person in power communicating this and what it means.”
“I know you don’t want to report about this. I know you don’t want to talk about this, but I assure you I will continue to repeat these numbers until you do,” she added.
Citing a 2018 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, she also pointed to the inadequacy of resources available to fight climate change compared to the speed at which it is occurring. “With today’s emission levels,” she noted, “the remaining budget is gone in less than eight years.”
On the other hand, climate change was not a concern for the other headline speaker in Davos on Thursday, Donald Trump.
Congratulating himself for the success of his economic policy, he said the “United States is in the midst of an economic boom, the likes of which the world has never seen before.”
“America is thriving, America is flourishing and, yes, America is winning like never before,” he stressed, pointing to achievements which, he said, have been made under his watch, such as reduced taxation, low unemployment, seven million new jobs and an improvement in the situation of the middle class.
The Brussels Times
