Greta Thunberg accuses world leaders of using climate crisis as ‘business opportunity’
- Thunberg appeared via video-link at the Austrian World Summit on climate policy hosted by former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
- Thunberg said the climate crisis was being treated as an opportunity to create green jobs, businesses and technologies
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg launched a new broadside on Thursday against “role-playing” by political and economic leaders over the climate crisis, accusing them of using it as a business opportunity.
Appearing via video-link at the Austrian World Summit on climate policy hosted by former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, she described the reaction of those in power to the groundswell of climate activism.
“Eventually the public pressure was too much. So you started to act,” Thunberg said. “But acting as in role-playing. Playing politics, playing with words, playing with our future.”
Thunberg, 18, derided wealthy nations’ climate commitments as “vastly insufficient” in the face of “more and more extreme weather events … raging all around us”.
This week a heatwave in western Canada and the north-western United States smashed temperature records and has been linked to dozens of excess deaths.
Thunberg said net zero emissions targets announced by major economies “could be a great start, if they weren’t full of gaps and loopholes” such as “leaving out emissions from imported goods, international aviation and shipping”.