AFP, published Monday 07 November 2022 at 13:06
After four years of mobilizing with climate strikes, Swedish activist Greta Thunberg intends to “pass the megaphone to others,” she said in an interview published Monday as COP27 kicked off in Egypt.
“We also need to listen to the testimonies and experiences of the people most affected by the climate crisis,” she urged in an interview with the Swedish agency TT.
“Now is the time to pass the megaphone to those who really have stories to tell. We need new perspectives,” demands the 19-year-old Swede.
The pioneer of the Fridays for Future movement, who has become the face of the climate cause since she began a “school strike for the climate” in 2018, has to graduate from high school at the end of the year.
His desire to be the center of attention is based on the fact that climate change is already having a devastating impact on the lives of people around the world.
“That’s why it becomes all the more hypocritical when people say in Sweden, for example, that we can adapt and that we shouldn’t be afraid of what might happen in the future,” she told TT.
As world leaders gather in Egypt for COP27, the Swedish activist announced that she would not be going to the climate conference, judging that these international gatherings are now a matter of “greenwashing”.
The Swede, who had already regretted that the COP26, organized in Glasgow last year, ended in her only ‘blah blah blah’, explains that her meetings with world leaders have made her more pessimistic.
“Some statements by world leaders and heads of state are hard to believe with the microphones turned off,” notes the young woman.
“The lack of knowledge from the most powerful people on the planet is shocking,” she said.
In the next year, the Stockholm native, who does not mention the form of her possible resignation, wants to aim for a university degree.
“Let’s see. If I had to choose today, I would continue my studies. Preferably something with a social connection,” she says.