“How Dare You” Thunberg Addresses World Leaders

On Sept. 23, 2019, Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old Swedish climate activist, spoke at the

UN Climate Action Summit at the United Nations Headquarters (New York).

Her powerful speech gained attention from all over the world and continues to be praised by climate researchers.

“Speaking as a climate change scientist who has been working on this issue for 20 years and saying the same thing for 20 years, she is getting people to listen, which we have failed to do,” said Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change & Development in London (NBC).

Sally Benson, the co-director of the Precourt Institute for Energy at Stanford University commented on Thunberg’s speech and said, “She has been a catalytic leader,” Benson said. “We’re seeing more grassroots action, and she’s creating a movement where young people are pushing communities, cities, states, and corporations and saying, ‘we’re not going to wait’” (NBC).

Thunberg’s speech addressed world leaders for failing to provide adequate action in combatting climate change and highlighted the severity of the global climate situation at hand.

She referred to a seminal report released by the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change in October 2018, noting the impact of 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming. The report mentioned that since the 19th century, Earth has already warmed by 1 degree Celsius.

Since this report from almost a year ago, carbon dioxide emissions have spiked, as Earth recently had its hottest month on record in July.

Thunberg said, “The popular idea of cutting our emissions in half in 10 years only gives us a 50 percent chance of staying below 1.5 degrees and the risk of setting off irreversible chain reactions beyond human control.”

However, the countries that contribute greatly to global emissions were, for the most part, absent. The United States has produced more greenhouse gas emissions than any other country but was practically a “no-show” at the summit (CNN). President Trump only appeared for 15 minutes in the audience.

China is the current leader in emitting more greenhouse gases than any other country. China has announced its achievement in its emissions reduction goals earlier than planned but have made no other goals or commitments in the meantime.

According to the Climate Action Summit 2019 closing release, some major announcements include:

• France announced that it would not enter into any trade agreement with countries that have

policies counter to the Paris Agreement.

• Germany committed to carbon neutrality by 2050

• 12 countries today made financial commitments to the Green Climate Fund, the official financial

mechanism to assist developing countries in adaptation and mitigation practices to counter

climate change. This is in addition to recent announcements from Norway, Germany, France and

the United Kingdom who have recently doubled their present contributions.

• The United Kingdom today made a major additional contribution, doubling its overall

international climate finance to L11.6 billion for the period from 2020 to 2025

• India pledged to increase renewable energy capacity to 175gw by 2022 and committed to further

increasing to 450GW, and announced that 80 countries have joined the International Solar

Alliance.

• China said it would cut emissions by over 12 billion tons annually, and would pursue a path of high

quality growth and low carbon development.

• The European Union announced at least 25% of the next EU budget will be devoted to climaterelated activities.

• The Russian Federation announced that they will ratify the Paris Agreement, bringing the total

number of countries that have joined the Agreement to 187.

• Pakistan said it would plant more than 10 billion trees over the next five years.

Thurnberg’s remarkable speech is pushing politicians to do more, not only in the US, but all around the world.