Cop26 will not bring change, saysthunberg
Greta Thunberg has revealed she believes nothing significant will be achieved at the COP26 climate conference.
The 18-year-old climate activist has outlined a pessimistic prediction for how little other than symbolic gestures will come out of the event in Glasgow in November.
World leaders will descend on Scotland for the 12-day UN conference aimed at accelerating action to halt the climate crisis.
But Thunberg said: “Nothing has changed from previous years really. The leaders will say ‘we’ll do this’ and ‘we’ll do this’, and ‘we will put our forces together and achieve this’, and then they will do nothing.
“Maybe they’ll do some symbolic things and creative accounting and things that don’t really have a big impact.
“We can have as many Cops as we want, but nothing real will come out of it.”
Thunberg added that she was unimpressed with politicians, even the prime minister of New Zealand Jacinda Adern
who had described the climate emergency as a matter of life or death. Greenhouse gas emissions in New Zealand rose by 2% in 2019.
Speaking in a Guardian interview, she said: “Nobody has surprised me. It’s funny that people believe Jacinda Ardern and people like that are climate leaders. That just tells you how little people know about the climate crisis.”
But the Swedish campaigner – who first rose to prominence at 15 by striking from school every Friday over climate issues – said that she has little interest in fame or a career compared to the value of friendship.
She said: “Apart from the climate, almost nothing else matters.”