AFP/Huffpost editing
Great Thunberg and Al Gore spoke at the Davos Forum in mid-January 2023 to call for action on global warming.
INTERNATIONAL – The tirades are piling up in Davos. Former US Vice President Al Gore, environmental activist Greta Thunberg, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres… All had messages to deliver on Wednesday 18th January and Thursday 19th January during the Davos Economic Forum on the environmental emergency.
On Wednesday, former US presidential candidate Al Gore expressed anger at xenophobia towards climate refugees after mentioning sea-level rise or drought that could force up to a billion people to flee their homes.
Al Gore blames climate change for xenophobia at World Economic Forum GORE: “Look at the xenophobia and the political issues… https://t.co/YR0jB9lBCv
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller)
“Look at the xenophobia and authoritarian political trend that emerged after only a few million (climate) refugees. What will happen when there are a billion? We will lose our ability to rule in this world,” he raged.
Greta Thunberg calls for “massive public pressure”
On Thursday it was the turn of Swede Greta Thunberg, who had been arrested two days earlier for protesting the expansion of a coal mine in Germany, to put her fist on the table. At an event on the sidelines of the summit, she accused the forum of “bringing together the people who are fueling the destruction of the planet the most.” It was “absurd” to listen to them, she said, calling for “massive public pressure” against fossil fuels.
Davos is “the place where the people who are fueling the destruction of the planet the most, the people who are in the middle of the climate crisis, the people who are investing in fossil fuels…” she said, accusing them of “greed”. and to place “short-term economic gain above people and above the planet.”
“The changes we need probably won’t come from within. I rather think they will come from the grassroots,” she said. “Without massive public pressure from outside (…) they will keep investing in fossil fuels, they will keep sacrificing people for their own benefit. “.
“It’s fed up,” denounces Helena Gualinga
Greta Thunberg was accompanied by three other climate activists: Helena Gualinga from Ecuador, Vanessa Nakate from Uganda and Luisa Neubauer from Germany. They arrived in Davos with a petition launched this week urging multinationals to stop exploiting fossil fuels. The text had collected more than 870,000 signatures as of Wednesday evening.
Helena Gualinga also sounded the alarm in Davos. “It’s fed up,” denounces this activist, who is also one of the new faces of the mobilization against climate change. At 20, she became spokeswoman for her Sarayaku community in the Ecuadorian Amazon, which demands rights and more autonomy from the state and the big oil companies.
As she accused UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday, “certain oil giants” had “spread the big lie” by hiding their information on global warming.
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“Some fossil fuel producers in the 1970s were well aware that their flagship product was going to burn up the planet,” he said. A reference in particular to the large ExxonMobil group which, thanks to very accurate forecasts, was aware of the impact of its activities on the planet but remained silent.
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