Leading youth climate activist Greta Thunberg has said world leaders must prove that they have listened to young climate activists after a year of protests has not led to any progress in the reduction of greenhouse emissions.
World leaders have an opportunity at the United Nations climate summit in September in New York to address the “ecological emergency”, said the Swedish teenager, who will attend the UN talks, crossing the Atlantic by boat.
Reuters Newsagency reports some 450 activists from 38 European countries brought their #FridaysforFuture movement to the Swiss city of Lausanne, calling for swift action to reduce emissions including carbon dioxide linked to global warming, especially in Europe.
“During this last year, lots of things have happened,” Ms Thunberg told a news conference.
“Then of course the global emissions haven’t gone down.
“So we’re still back on square one,” Ms Thunberg added.
“So of course we will need to do so much more, we are still only scratching the surface,” the 16-year-old said.
Global warming caused by heat-trapping greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels has already led to droughts and heatwaves, melting glaciers, rising sea levels and floods, scientists have said.
Carbon emissions hit a record high last year, despite a warning from the UN-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in October that output of the gases will have to be slashed over the next 12 years to stabilise the climate.
The movement must continue to raise the alarm, including in Asia where students have held fewer strikes, Ms Thunberg said.
Referring to the summit, she said: “I think this is a great opportunity for world leaders to show that they have actually listened to us and to the science. Now they will have to prove that”.
Professor Jacques Dubochet, a Swiss who won the 2017 Nobel prize in chemistry, said “fundamental change” was needed, adding: “We know exactly where we have to go, out of carbon as soon as possible.”
Professor Ernst von Weizsacker, a scientist and former German politician, told reporters: “If we only concentrate our action on Europe we are losing the war.
This was because more than 90 per cent of newly-built and planned coal-powered plants are in developing countries, he said.
“And unless we persuade them that it could be lucrative and good for them to stop building coal power plants and make money out of renewable energies and energy efficiency, which is a great potential, we are losing.”
Activists urged the European Union to adopt more ambitious climate goals, in line with the UN sponsored Paris Agreement, by reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent by 2030 compared to 1990, and aiming to reach net-zero by 2035.
The bloc should not sign any free trade agreement with countries that do not uphold the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the European Citizens’ Initiative said.
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