Climate Change Thread

[spmetla]

COP26: Greta Thunberg tells protest that COP26 has been a 'failure'

Ms Thunberg said: "It is not a secret that COP26 is a failure. It should be obvious that we cannot solve a crisis with the same methods that got us into it in the first place."

She said: "We need immediate drastic annual emission cuts unlike anything the world has ever seen.

"The people in power can continue to live in their bubble filled with their fantasies, like eternal growth on a finite planet and technological solutions that will suddenly appear seemingly out of nowhere and will erase all of these crises just like that.

"All this while the world is literally burning, on fire, and while the people living on the front lines are still bearing the brunt of the climate crisis."

She described the UN climate change summit as a "two-week long celebration of business as usual and blah, blah, blah" to "maintain business as usual" and "create loopholes to benefit themselves".

Ms Thunberg added: "We know that our emperors are naked."

Activists from several other countries also gave speeches about how climate change is already affecting their homelands.

They included including Vanessa Nakate from Uganda, who said: "Historically, Africa is responsible for only 3% of global emissions and yet Africans are suffering some of the most brutal impacts fuelled by the climate crisis.

"But while the global south is on the frontlines of the climate crisis, they're not on the front pages of the world's newspapers."

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland...-west-59165781

I wouldn't call the COP26 a failure but certainly underwhelming. Did anyone think that COP was going to seriously get agreements to reduce carbon by the means that are used to sustain economic growth in so much of the world despite the negative impact on the climate? Though I've always disliked Thunberg as she seems to embody the petulant demands of a generation not matched by their own actions. If this was matched by action to go and reduce fossil few use by her 'movement' I'd be more impressed. If we in the 'west' did simple things like not running A/C all day, carpooling, and all those other things that burn so much energy but I see that her movement is more just protest without personal action. Not that those individual actions would fix a thing but at least I could believe it more than essentially demands to fix the climate while maintaining their current standard of living/ lifestyle choices. The protest is important as this issue needs to maintain the spot light.

Having the top economies in the world stand by coal use is sad but given the economic climate and fragile political climates I'm not surprised that they favor growth/stability over climate in the near term. China, India, and the US need to drastically reduce our own carbon emissions and leaving any of those three out of the equation makes the end result the same.