COP26 Unlikely To Lead To “Big Changes”: Climate Activist Greta Thunberg

Swedish activist Greta Thunberg on Saturday said upcoming climate talks in Glasgow, billed as humanity’s last chance to avoid catastrophic global warming, were unlikely to “lead to big changes”.

Thunberg, whose Fridays For Future movement has inspired massive street protests around the world, said activists needed to keep on “pushing” for real change.

“As it is now, this COP will not lead to any big changes, we’re going to have to continue pushing,” she told AFP on the sidelines of a climate concert organised in Stockholm.

“My hopes are, of course, that suddenly we will realise that we are facing an existential crisis and act after that,” she added.

The COP26 meeting in Scotland, being held from October 31 until November 12, will be the biggest climate conference since landmark talks in Paris in 2015, and is seen as a crucial step in setting worldwide emissions targets to slow global warming.

Thunberg said that international summits like COP26 “have a potential of changing (things) since they gather so many people together.

“So we may need to make sure that we use that opportunity to actually change things,” she said.

Thunberg stressed the need to “switch the focus from trying to create loopholes” to “actually saving the planet”.

The Glasgow gathering will try to persuade major developing economies to do more to cut their carbon emissions, and get the rich world to cough up billions more to help poorer countries adapt to climate change.