When I first watched Greta Thunberg’s speech at the United Nations Climate Action summit, my reaction was no different from Trump— “seems like a very happy young girl, looking forward to a bright and wonderful future, so nice to see.” But at the same time I found her rhetoric and gesture disturbing enough to overwhelm the UN summit. It seemed that hard-left ideologues used her to blackmail the world into paying heed to their dangerous agendas. But when I started delving deep into her work and endeavors my perception regarding Thunberg’s goal turned upside down.
An emotional and envious speech by teen activist Greta Thunberg in the opening session of the United Nations Climate Action Summit on September 23 provided an eloquent voice for the reality of the climate crisis. Thunberg’s address to the UN’s Climate Action Summit may well prove to be the climate change movement’s Gettysburg Address. At the Summit, Greta confronted the world leaders by saying, "How dare you?" and condemned them for failing to take strong measures to combat climate change. Greta’s speech was a historic turning point where for the first time the power of ‘we’ met the power of ‘you’ without compromise and with a ferocious courage. Now the question is what can we do today to leave the planet a better place than we found it?
We hope this latest round of talks on climate
change would not be yet another exercise in
making hollow commitments. Let the urge and
grudge of 16-years old Greta Thunberg persuade
the first world countries to step
away from their earlier stance on not
revising current climate plans by 2020.
Thunberg not only stole the show on a global scale for her resolute stance on climate change, but also she has had to defend herself against personal attacks, with some citing her Asperger syndrome as reason to question her credibility and her mental health. The backlashes that this 16 year old girl has gone through have compelled me into thinking about why adults are mocking Greta instead of appreciating her. The only reason I found is her age. Powerful world leaders cannot accept the blow that came from a 16 year old girl. Greta’s speech exposes the lack of acumen among the policy makers around the world in terms of addressing climate challenges. Greta has been doing what the world leaders should have done long ago.
However, the teen activist hit back at critics including Donald Trump on Friday before she marched in a climate strike in Montreal, saying their mockery of children shows her message has become ‘too loud to handle’. “We are having so much impact that people want to silence us. We've become too loud for people to handle so they try to silence us. So we should also take that as a compliment”, the 16-year-old climate activist said in response to the backlash she has been going through over the last week.
The idea of climate justice has been around for at least two decades. Initially it was used to describe an approach that placed inequalities between countries at the front and centre of climate negotiations. At its simplest, it means that cutting carbon emissions can’t be done without regard to fairness, and thus that the burden of change should fall differently on rich and poor.
There has been a big dissonance between every leader saying to Greta ‘we hear you’ and the commitments they are putting on to the table. China said absolutely nothing new, India mentioned commitments made in the past. There is a feeling that the big emitters are holding things back. However, there were a few signs of progress. A group of nearly 90 large companies promised to reach net zero emissions by 2050, while a handful of countries said they will be winding down coal use. But it became apparent that most of the ambition was coming from developing countries, rather than the major polluters. We wonder how the “catastrophic warming” that is causing extreme weather conditions like thawing of the permafrost and alarming sea-level rising at much faster rates than expected, can be ignored by people heading some of the biggest economies of the world.
We hope this latest round of talks on climate change would not be yet another exercise in making hollow commitments. Let the urge and grudge of 16-years old Greta Thunberg persuade the first world countries to step away from their earlier stance on not revising current climate plans by 2020.
It needs no emphasizing that ‘she has a bright future’ but like cynic and critics this expression should not be interpreted ironically as in her speech Greta said that she has no future, because of climate change and everything. Also Greta must be aware of her gesture, rhetoric and most importantly she has to more conscious about the elements of her protest as long as she is fighting for climate justice.
In the photos showing the climate-change protests led by Greta Thunberg, we saw ladders, paper signs, clothes and many other products that either were produced from petroleum or used gas to be shipped somewhere. There is no denying that those protestors had to travel using fossil-fuel-burning transportation. Same applies for the food they eat and the cell-phones they are using. The point is, with hardly any effort, I have listed items these young activists used as they complained about what they perceive as the cause of global warming — the older generation. To paraphrase their complaints, they should go for some real action on their part instead of just empty protests. Of course, we should act against climate change. But panic, which is what Thunberg wants us to do, is not a rational response indeed.
Sayeed Hossain Shuvro is Editorial Assistant, Bangladesh Post
