Don’t underestimate angry children – Thunberg
Teenage activist Greta Thunberg said the world was underestimating ‘‘angry children’’ as she arrived in Europe after a three-week journey across the Atlantic ahead of this year’s international climate summit in Spain.
Her arrival came as the United Nations said this decade will be the warmest on record, with 2019 among the top three hottest years in history.
‘‘Everyone should do what they can to be on the right side of history; no country is doing enough,’’ Thunberg said after being welcomed in Lisbon by Mayor Fernando Medina.
She made the three-week journey on a catamaran with a British navigator and an Australian sailing couple after the summit was moved from Chile to Madrid because of civil unrest in its original host country.
Promising to continue her journey to the Spanish capital after a couple of days’ rest, Thunberg said she would ‘‘fight so that the voices of the people and the young would be heard from the other side of the wall. People are underestimating the power of angry children. We are annoyed and frustrated, but for good reason’’.
Thunberg is expected to speak at the COP25 summit, where countries will attempt to finalise the rules for the rollout of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change.
Recent days have seen several reports on the state of global warming which are intended to put pressure on countries to reach a consensus.
The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said this week that global temperatures so far this year were 1.1 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average between 1850 and 1900, meaning that 2019 could turn out to be the hottest year of all those not affected by the El Nino phenomenon.
Opening the COP25 climate change summit in Madrid this week, Pedro Sanchez, Spain’s prime minister, said ‘‘only a handful of fanatics now deny the evidence’’ that climate change is caused by human activity.
Supporters of Thunberg hope that she will lead a demonstration being organised by youth groups against climate change on Friday.
Among a group of young protesters who gathered outside Spain’s parliament on the eve of COP25, many expressed similar anger and frustration as their Swedish idol.
‘‘I’m angry and annoyed with our politicians who do nothing,’’ says Paula Mancebo, a 20-year-old university student from Madrid. ‘‘Older people think this is not going to affect them and they are just going to take as much as they can while they can, but it’s going to affect everyone. We are just asking for people to live a simpler life, and not one that causes damage, especially to people in less developed parts of the world.’’ – Telegraph Group