Issued on: 19/01/2023 – 02:42
Davos (Switzerland) (AFP) – Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg returned to Davos on Thursday to press her fight against fossil fuels at the annual meeting of the world’s business and political elite.
Two days after she was briefly detained by police at a coal mine protest in Germany, Thunberg and other young activists will take part in a debate with International Energy Agency (IEA) chief Fatih Birol on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum.
The 20-year-old Swede caused a stir when she attended the forum as a teenager in January 2020, warning that “our house is still on fire” and complaining that her demands had been “completely ignored”.
Then-US President Donald Trump used his speech at the same forum to attack the “eternal prophets of doom” as Thunberg watched from the audience.
This week, she and fellow activists Helena Gualinga of Ecuador, Vanessa Nakate of Uganda and Luisa Neubauer of Germany launched an online petition demanding that energy companies halt any new oil, gas or coal mining projects – or face possible legal action actions.
More than 870,000 people had signed the petition by late Wednesday.
“Enough is enough,” Gualinga told AFP earlier this week. “We have to leave oil underground.
The four campaigners will be among the panelists to discuss with Birol on Thursday calls for an end to new investment in fossil fuels and what needs to be done to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, organizers said .
The IEA, which advises governments, said in an October report that the energy crisis triggered by Russia’s incursion into Ukraine is causing changes that could accelerate the transition to a “more sustainable and secure energy system.”
Big Oil’s “Big Lie”.
Thunberg was among a group of people led away by police on Tuesday during a protest near the German village of Lucerne, which is being demolished to make way for a coal mine expansion. They have not been formally arrested.
Her actions were praised in Davos by former US Vice President Al Gore, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on climate change.
“I agree with her efforts to stop this coal mine,” Gore said at a panel discussion on global warming, adding that young people around the world have despaired of leaders’ efforts to address the climate crisis.
“We are not winning” the battle against global warming, he said.
Climate change is a major topic at the World Economic Forum, where businesses and governments are under pressure to do more to ensure the world meets the increasingly elusive goal of limiting warming to 1.5C.
In a speech on Wednesday, UN chief Antonio Guterres drew a parallel between the actions of oil companies and those of tobacco companies, which have ended up being hit by costly lawsuits over the harmful effects of cigarettes.
Guterres pointed to a study published in the journal Science last week that said ExxonMobil rejected the findings of its own scientists who accurately predicted global warming due to fossil fuels as early as the late 1970s.
“Some in Big Oil spread the big lie,” he said. “And like the tobacco industry, those responsible must be held accountable.”
© 2023 AFP
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