Friday was the official youth day at the UN climate summit in Glasgow. While not only young people had their say in the conference center, the youth outside, on the streets of Glasgow, took the floor. And thousands of them articulated their demands for a decisive fight against global warming.
Anger and disappointment could be heard about the slow progress in the race against time: If there is no massive countermeasures in this decade, the earth will heat up by 1.5 degrees and more in the early 2030s compared to the pre-industrial age – with devastating consequences. In the midst of the rally organized by “Fridays for Future”: Greta Thunberg. The 18-year-old Swede, an icon of the global movement, sharply criticized the conference and the state leaders appearing there: “They are doing nothing.” The conference is “a global festival in greenwashing ??”, a single “failure”.
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The first week of COP26 is coming to an end. There remains one more decisive course to be set by November 12th, so that the 1.5-degree target can be met, which 197 states agreed on in 2015 in Paris. Boris Johnson, British Prime Minister and host, was “cautiously optimistic”. Thunberg and her colleagues, on the other hand, accuse the conference organization that those who are most directly affected by climate change do not have enough or no say in the deliberations.
A UN climate summit has never excluded so many people, said Thunberg. Many people from the poor countries of the global south were unable to travel due to exorbitant accommodation prices as well as extensive testing and quarantine regulations in the wake of the pandemic – exacerbated by the shortage of vaccines in developing countries.
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Another demonstration follows today in Glasgow, which is expected to attract more than 100,000 people. The protest is part of a global day of action that aims to bring hundreds of thousands to the streets in more than 200 cities. (via)
Source From: Nachrichten
