Activist Greta Thunberg warns governments in Madrid that ‘change is coming’

Teen activist Greta Thunberg took her call for bold action to tackle climate change to a U.N. summit in Spain on Friday, warning world leaders that a growing youth-led protest movement meant they could no longer hide.

 “The current world leaders are betraying us and we will not let that happen anymore,” Thunberg said in a brief speech to 15,000 protesters in Madrid. “Change is coming whether you like it or not because we have no other choice,” she said. Thunberg had earlier told an event at a cultural centre that she and her fellow activists would ensure that world leaders “cannot just hide away anymore.”

“We are really gaining momentum, we are getting bigger and bigger and our voices are being heard more and more, but of course that does not translate into political action,” she said. Unwilling to fly because of the pollution it causes, Thunberg had sailed the Atlantic to attend a U.N. summit in September, before returning to Europe by catamaran.

“We are in one of the most critical moments in history and it seems for the first time we are speaking with one voice,” added actor Javier Bardem, who also addressed the marchers.

The annual summit opened on Monday with a call from U.N. chief Antonio Guterres not to be the “generation … that fiddled while the planet burned”. By this meeting’s close on Dec. 13, negotiators hope to resolve remaining disagreements on how to implement an accord struck in Paris in 2015 to avert catastrophic global warming.

[Reuters]

This entry was posted in International Cooperation, Uncategorized by Grant Montgomery.