Greta Thunberg Mocks World Leaders In Speech At Youth4Climate Conference

In her speech at the Youth4Climate conference in Milan, Swedish activist Greta Thunberg mocked world leaders for their insufficient efforts to tackle climate change throughout the past decades.

With just weeks to go before the COP26 summit in Glasgow, which is aimed at accelerating action towards the goals of the Paris Agreement, campaigners heavily criticized governments’ failure to address the climate crisis. 

“This is not about some expensive politically correct dream of bunny hugging, or build back better, blah blah blah, green economy, blah blah blah, net-zero by 2050, blah blah blah, climate-neutral blah blah blah,” Thunberg said, referring to a speech by COP26 summit host and UK PM Boris Johnson. 

“Build back better, blah blah blah. Green economy, blah blah blah.”@GretaThunberg calls out world leaders, including Joe Biden and Boris Johnson, for their “empty words" and decades of "inaction" on the climate crisis. pic.twitter.com/ZneM0hw3GE

— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) September 29, 2021

Many countries have set ambitious targets to curb emissions under the Paris Agreement, an international treaty on climate change that is legally binding and commits countries to limiting global temperature increase well below 2 degrees Celsius. 

However, six years after the agreement was passed, countries still did not propose concrete plans as to how to achieve this goal. 

Thunberg condemned governments for “shamelessly congratulating themselves while still failing to come up with the long overdue funding” for developing nations in her speech. 

“This is all we hear from our so-called leaders. Words. Words that sound great but so far has led to no action,” Thunberg said. “Our hopes and dreams drown in their empty promises.” 

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