Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg says the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change should serve as a “wake-up call” for governments to do more to lower emissions. In its first major report in nearly a decade, the IPCC says the Earth could face runaway global warming unless drastic efforts are made to eliminate greenhouse gases and that humans are “unequivocally to blame for the climate crisis,” which is already causing widespread and rapid changes. “The climate crisis is not going away,” Thunberg said. “It’s only escalating, and it’s only growing more intense by the hour.”
Transcript
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, as we turn now to Greta Thunberg, who has just responded to the new IPCC report.
GRETA THUNBERG: We have not once been treating this crisis like an actual crisis. And, of course, media is reporting now about extreme weather events and consequences of the climate crisis, but, then again, we also have to remember that these are all just symptoms of the climate crisis. We are not talking about the root cause itself, the things that is actually fueling these events. We are not holding people in power accountable. We are not talking about the current, best-available science, what it says, and how the situation looks like now. And we are especially not talking about the gap between what politicians are saying and what they are actually doing. …
This report doesn’t tell us what to do. It doesn’t say you have to do this, and then you have to do this. It doesn’t provide us with such solutions or tell us that you need to do this. That’s up for us. We are the ones who need to take the decisions, and we are the ones who need to be brave and ask the difficult questions to ourselves, like: What do we value? Are we ready to take action to ensure future and present living conditions?
So, I hope that this can be a wake-up call and that it really gives perspective and that it, once again, can be a reminder that the climate crisis has not gone away, it’s only escalating, and it’s only growing more intense by the hour.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Greta Thunberg responding to the new IPCC report. She was responding from Stockholm, Sweden.
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