At the United Nations climate negotiations in Germany, Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has called for a radical change of course by business and politics in the fight against global warming.
“This is a matter of life or death,” said the 20-year-old in Bonn on Tuesday. She said that coal, oil and gas must be phased out quickly as climate-damaging greenhouse gas emissions are still at record levels.
Until next weekend, interim negotiations are ongoing in Bonn for the next UN climate summit in Dubai, which will start at the end of November. Thunberg launched the global activist movement “Fridays for Future” five years ago with her “school strike for the climate”.
Thunberg said the coming months will be decisive for humanity’s future. If there is no change in climate policy, it will mean the “death sentence for many people”. Countless lives are already threatened in many world regions on the “front line of the climate crisis”.
Thunberg said the scale of the climate crisis is scientifically proven, and the means to combat it are known. “But the political will is nowhere to be found. Scientists have been warning of the impending climate catastrophe for decades. But their warnings have been drowned in greenwashing and lies from the powerful.” The latter was looking for lazy solutions and loopholes to keep their “business as usual,” she said.
Environmentalists hope the UN climate change conference in Dubai will decide on a rapid phase-out of fossil fuels such as oil and gas, but the trend is moving in the opposite direction. Despite depressing alarms such as increasing droughts, wildfires and storms, global investment in oil, gas and coal has been rising to more than $1,000 billion this year, according to estimates from the International Energy Agency.
The world has already warmed by about 1.1 degrees compared to pre-industrial times. According to World Meteorological Organization calculations, 2015 to 2022 were the eighth warmest since records began in the 1850s.