(Newswire.net — September 24, 2019) — New York – Young climate activist from Sweden Greta Tunberg made an emotional appeal to world leaders at the start of the United Nations climate summit, echoing the message and the question “how dare you?”
“This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean,” said Thunberg, who traveled for two weeks on a solar-powered sailboat to reach the United States this month.
“Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you?” Greta blasted the World leaders. She said that even the most stringent emission reductions being discussed give the world a 50 percent chance of limiting global warming to an additional 0.4 degrees Celsius, a global target. She also said that wasn’t good enough.
The UN Climate Summit was opened by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, warning that the time to save the Earth from climate change is running out, but it’s not too late.
Guterres told the summit’s world leaders that it was not the time to negotiate but to act in order to achieve the goal of keeping the world neutral in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050.
One after the other, world leaders said in a statement at the UN summit that they would do more to prevent global warming from reaching even more dangerous levels. While making their promises, leaders have acknowledged that it is not enough.
Out of 66 countries that have promised to have more ambitious climate targets, 30 have promised to be carbon-neutral by mid-century, said Chilean President Sebastian Pinera Echenique, who is hosting climate talks later this year.
Leaders from countries such as Finland and Germany have pledged to ban coal use for ten years. Several have mentioned the goals of climate neutrality, meaning the country would be leveling the emission of carbon dioxide with the amount spent by vegetation. German Chancellor Angela Merkel made detailed promises, including that they would stop using coal.
French President Emanuel Macron reminded leaders that they should integrate climate change into their trade and financial policies so that they do not import goods that increase carbon dioxide pollution, nor finance industries that pollute in other countries.
Macron urged other countries to step up their pledges on donations to the Green Climate Fund to help poorer countries with climate issues. France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Norway, Denmark and Sweden have recently doubled their promises for contributions: “We have now reached $7 billion. The goal is $10 billion to make up for the US withdrawal,” Macron said, suggesting that America should reconsider giving money, which was met with applause from other leaders.
“Action, action, action. We can’t leave our young people to spend every Friday protesting,” Macron said.