Prominent climate activists Greta Thunberg from Sweden, Helena Gualinga from Ecuador, Luisa Neubauer from Germany, and Vanessa Nakate from Uganda have berated the lack of climate action by political and corporate leaders.
The activists who took part in a roundtable discussion with Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency, on Thursday at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Switzerland said that there was an urgent need for adequate action to tackle the impacts of climate change.
Speaking during the roundtable discussion, Nakate said that people in parts of the world most affected by climate change are “clinging to their lives and just trying to make it for another day, to make it for another week, to make it for another hour, another minute,” adding that “leaders are playing games” with people’s futures.
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On her part, Gualinga said the world is “taking a really dangerous path” while Thunberg criticized corporate leaders for “fueling the destruction of the planet” through their investments in fossil fuels and disregard for those impacted by the climate catastrophe in favour of short-term profits.
The activists carried a “cease and desist” letter with approximately 900,000 signatures requesting that the leaders of fossil fuel industries halt all new oil and natural gas projects.
In his response, Birol expressed optimism that the world would move away from fossil fuels and toward clean energy, noting that the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act’s nearly $375 billion in climate incentives would be transformative for renewables in the country.
He, however, added that “the problem is not being fast enough to reach our climate targets.”
Story was adapted from africanews.
