COP26 is already a “failure”, Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has claimed.
Speaking to a crowd of thousands in Glasgow where the summit is being held, the 18 year old branded the talks “a two-week long celebration of business as usual and ‘blah, blah, blah’.”
Instead, she called for "immediate and drastic" cuts to global carbon emissions:
"It is not a secret that COP26 is a failure. It should be obvious that we cannot solve a crisis with the same methods that got us into it in the first place,” Ms Thunberg said.
"We need immediate drastic annual emission cuts unlike anything the world has ever seen.
"The people in power can continue to live in their bubble filled with their fantasies, like eternal growth on a finite planet and technological solutions that will suddenly appear seemingly out of nowhere and will erase all of these crises just like that.
"All this while the world is literally burning, on fire, and while the people living on the front lines are still bearing the brunt of the climate crisis."
Rallies in Ireland
The claim comes ahead of rallies scheduled for today in cities across Ireland, in which thousands are expected to gather and press the Irish Government for steeper emission cuts.
Eddie Conlon, a spokesman for COP26 Coalition Ireland, said people should attend if they want to send a “clear message” to the Government:
“We’re asking people to come out in huge numbers to send a clear message to the authorities both in Ireland and globally,” Mr Conlon told Newstalk.
“We want real action on climate change and we want them to act to stop the destruction of our planet. And we want them to take action to ensure there’s a just transition to a carbon free future.”
He added that there was a need for “real action now” from Taoiseach Micheál Martin:
“He [Micheál Martin] needs to take seriously the need for real action now.
“It’s fine to produce large documents, which have quite variable targets in them, but we need real action which ensures our emissions are reduced”.
Earlier in the week Mr Martin told COP26 that “Ireland is ready to play its part” in the fight against climate change, adding:
“It will not be economically sustainable to carry on the way we are carrying on, either nationally or globally.”
Main image: Environmental activist Greta Thunberg, of Sweden, addresses the Climate Action Summit in the United Nations General Assembly, at U.N. headquarters, Monday, Sept. 23, 2019. Pictures by: AP Photo/Jason DeCrow.
