The Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg will be present on January 19 in Davos with other young climate activists, she will defend the fight against fossil fuels and debate with the director general of the International Energy Agency (IEA).
“Treat the climate crisis as a crisis”: this is the title of the “conversation” organized at 11:15 (10:15 GMT) on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum meeting this week in the Swiss ski resort, and in which the Swede participates with the Ecuadorian Amazonian Helena Gualinga, the Ugandan Vanessa Nakate and the German Luisa Neubauer
During the discussion, to which the director general of the IEA, Fatih Birol, is also invited: “the question of whether governments and companies are responding adequately to the climate crisis, the state of the transition to clean energy, calls to stop new investments in fossil fuels, and what needs to be done to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees,” the organizers detail.
The activists are going to Davos with a petition launched this week and demanding that multinationals stop exploiting fossil fuels. The text had gathered more than 870.000 signatures on Wednesday evening, January 18.
“We need to keep the oil in the ground,” Helena Gualinga had said earlier this week in an interview with AFP. “We come from different places in the world, but we have the same proposal. It’s a call to say +there’s enough!”, enough because we’ve said it many times, we need urgent action.”
“If you don’t act immediately, be warned that citizens around the world will consider legal actions to hold you accountable. And we will continue to demonstrate in large numbers in the streets,” proclaims the petition, which copies the appearance of a legal demand.
Greta Thunberg is not at her first attempt, she comes to Davos during the meeting of the World Economic Forum. In particular, the 2020 edition had been marked by her passing of arms with US President Donald Trump. It’s time to “panic” because “the house is burning”, she said at the time.
At the beginning of the week, she went to support demonstrators who opposed the extension of a coal mine in western Germany. This initiative earned her a few hours in police custody on Tuesday, according to a police source, but the support in Davos of former U.S. Vice President and environmental activist Al Gore, who said on Wednesday, January 18, “in agreement” with her struggle.
Climate change is an important topic at the Davos meeting this year. On Wednesday, January 18, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has already called for oil majors to be prosecuted, as cigarette companies have been, for years of concealing information they had about global warming.
“Some fossil fuel producers were well aware in the 1970s that their flagship product was going to burn the planet,” he said in a speech.
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