Why are we giving Nobel Prizes to children for being wrong?

Schoolgirl activist Greta Thunberg has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for leading the much-publicised “children’s strike” against global warming. Over the years, the prize has scarcely covered itself in glory. Controversial recipients have included the EU, Barack Obama, just weeks into his first administration, and Henry Kissinger – awarded at the height of the carpet-bombing of Cambodia in 1973. But this latest nomination will only trash the prize’s tainted reputation still further.

The Nobel Committee is unwittingly adopting a common trope in debate, attributing special insights to children despite their limited knowledge of complex subjects – “out of the mouth of babes and sucklings”. Everyone seems to be giving children political kudos they don’t deserve. Earlier this year, Corbynistas gleefully shared clips of a toddler calling Jeremy Corbyn her hero. Donald Tusk recently posted a letter from a British child expressing sadness over Brexit. But what of the facts?

Thunberg is clearly an intelligent, impressive teenager, of whom any parent would be proud. But at the core of her message is a sense that adults and Western governments have failed to act on climate change. “Why were there no restrictions [on emissions]?” she demanded in a recent interview. “It just didn’t add up.” The reason it “didn’t add up” is because it’s not true.

All but three nations adopted the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, while the EU and 174 countries signed the 2016 Paris Agreement. There have been numerous government initiatives, including the UK’S Climate Change Levy. Britain already derives over a quarter of its energy from renewable sources. Developing countries, where emissions are rising, are not the targets of teenage protest.

Alarmism has real-world consequences, as I remember from watching Al Gore’s global warming polemic An Inconvenient Truth at school. One now-notorious scene used glossy graphics to illustrate how rising ocean levels would engulf major cities. Afterwards, we fearfully speculated that Birmingham might become Britain’s next capital when London was submerged. Yet within a few years, many of Gore’s “findings” had been exposed as wild exaggerations (but not before he, too, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize).

We should also question the use of children in political messaging. All too often their inclusion appeals to emotion rather than reason, drawing attention to the “serious message” while disguising the idea’s impracticality. And just how kind is it to shower praise on children who are fundamentally wrong? There are better ways to prepare young people for the future than applauding those who spread “fake news”, encouraged by adults who should know better. Equipping youngsters with scepticism, analytical tools and a healthy respect for the facts will do far more than any protest or tokenistic accolade.