The planet “is not dying, it is being killed and we know by whom”, said Greta Thunberg, who castigated governments around the world for their failure to prevent environmental degradation in her first appearance at the annual UN climate talks in five years.
Thunberg, 23, the Swedish activist who became famous for leading the school climate strike movement, delivered her stark message to those gathered at the Cop31 summit in Antalya, Turkey, amid the continued failure of countries to adequately respond to the climate crisis.
“The Earth is being killed by the same people who are supposed to come to our rescue,” Thunberg said.
“No one is coming to our rescue. When our human rights are threatened by states and other institutions, it is our duty to stand up, be the adult in the room, and fight for everyone’s human rights.”
Thunberg, who in recent years has shifted her focus to other areas such as the Gaza conflict, linked worsening global warming to other calamities such as war in an appearance alongside activists from Nepal, Canada and Australia.
“We are heading towards a future of more genocides and ecocides and a total compromise on our fundamental rights and where basic necessities become luxuries,” she said.
“It is clearer than ever in spaces like this that the situation cannot be less than under control. The planet is not dying, it is being killed.”
The intervention, on the fourth day of the two-week summit, comes as world leaders who visited the Mediterranean coastal city delivered their own verdict on the climate crisis and faltering progress in tackling it.
Andy Burnham, the British Prime Minister, who was the only G7 leader to attend the negotiations, said in a speech that the record summer heat in the United Kingdom was “not normal.”
“The climate crisis is not a distant threat; it is upon us all now, devastating lives and livelihoods everywhere,” said Burnham, who promised the UK would reach net zero emissions and backed a proposal for countries to further electrify their economies.
Beth John, climate justice adviser at Oxfam GB, said Burnham’s appearance “sends a positive signal”. But she added: “It is not enough to be present: a crisis of this scale requires substantial action, not just signals. The true test of climate leadership is results, not declarations.”
The electrification target is one of the main potential promises expected during the negotiations jointly chaired by Turkey and Australia. Some countries want the text of the agreement to specify that electricity will come from clean energy sources.
Activists have criticized governments for being slow to reduce emissions and for failing so far to agree on a phase-out of fossil fuels in negotiations.
Current policies are expected to warm the planet by 2.7°C by the end of the century, according to a report released Thursday by Climate Action Tracker. The catastrophic rise in temperatures is slightly higher than the group predicted last year and well above the 1.5C promised by world leaders.
Thursday was full of stories about the damage caused by the climate crisis. Gita Chaudhary, Nepal’s environment minister, recounted the disastrous landslide – caused by melting glaciers – that hit the country in August, killing more than 1,500 people.
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“We call the catastrophic climate change event that we have experienced a mountain tsunami,” Chaudhary told the Guardian. “We have lost people, lives, properties. Nepal is working on rehabilitation, reconstruction and reconstruction of infrastructure. But we cannot revive communities, culture, lives.”
In the main conference room, a speech by Mohammad Mustafa, the Palestinian prime minister, drew a standing ovation from delegates as he described the environmental impact of the three-year war with Israel.
“Israel’s restrictions on access to land, water and natural resources have worsened Palestine’s climate challenges,” said Mustafa, who explained how widespread destruction in Gaza, including water supplies, sewage and agricultural land, had worsened environmental and health risks.
Turkish Cop31 hosts have repeatedly accused Israel of genocide and refused to invite the country’s leaders to Antalya. Israel denies committing genocide and insists it fought a legitimate war to safeguard its own security.
Another country not officially present at the negotiations is the United States, which did not send a delegation. Donald Trump removed the country from the international climate framework, called climate science a “hoax” and said he would not authorize any new wind turbines.
This position was criticized by John Kerry, the former US secretary of state, who visited Turkey with 20 Democratic members of Congress and two state governors. “He’s the biggest loser we’ve seen in a long time on all these issues,” Kerry said of Trump in response to a question from the Guardian.
The Democrats’ landslide victory in the midterm elections has raised hopes here that the Cop of the US will recommit to the climate crisis. But Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, warned that the final two years of the Trump presidency would not see a fundamental change in climate policy.
“I don’t want to idealize what that will mean,” Newsom said Thursday. “I don’t expect them to do anything other than double down.”
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