Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg slammed Joe Biden in an interview Monday, saying it’s ‘strange’ to consider the president a climate change leader ‘when you see what his administration is doing’.
Thunberg (age 18) claims that Biden’s Administration actually took measures to make the climate crisis worse despite promising to address it in his Clean Energy Revolution plan.
“The US expands its fossil fuel infrastructure.” Why does the US do that? Thunberg questioned, speaking to KK Ottesen of the Washington Post.
A vocal student from Sweden also attacked the climate leaders around the globe for placing the blame for protecting the environment on young people.
She added, “It shouldn’t fall on us activists or teenagers who want to just go to school to raise awareness and inform people that there is an emergency.”
Biden Administration set ambitious targets to lower pollution and greenhouse gas emission. These include 100 percent clean energy by 2035, and zero emissions by 2050.
But, he has struggled with a pandemic-caused rise in gas prices which has resulted in an increase in world oil production. He has also not fulfilled his campaign pledge to tighten restrictions on oil and gas leasing on federal land.
Greta Thunberg, a climate activist (pictured at the COP26 Summit in Nov. 2021), slammed Joe Biden in an interview Monday. She said it was’strange to consider him a leader on climate change when you look at what his administration has done’
Thunberg’s hatred for world leaders extends beyond the Biden Administration.
She blasted the United Nations’ climate summit, known by COP26, last month as a PR event’ or a failure.
Thunberg cited how leaders were unable to secure funding for the Green Climate Fund, which was created to support the efforts of developing countries in responding to the challenge of climate change.
‘The money that has already been promised, the bare minimum that the so-called global north have promised that they will deliver, they failed to come to any conclusions, and it’s been postponed once again,’ argued Thunberg, who has been nominated for the Nobel Prize in each of the past three years.
The UN summit leaders did make some progress, as she pointed out how they had included fossil fuels into their final document. But there is still much to be done.
‘Of course it’s a step forward that, instead of coming back every five years, they’re doing it every year now,’ Thunberg said.
Thunberg suggested that Biden’s Administration had taken steps to make the climate crisis worse despite his Clean Energy Revolution Plan (Pictured as Joe Biden December 27, 2021).
She blasted the United Nations Climate Summit, also known as COP26 (pictured) as a ‘PR Event’ and a Failure.
She added: ‘But still, that doesn’t mean anything unless that actually leads to increased ambition and if they actually fulfill those ambitions.’
Thunberg also claimed that we need to fundamentally alter our societies right now. He claimed that people too focus on the immediate and are not driven to seek out solutions for the future.
‘Right now, what’s holding us back is that we lack that political will. We don’t prioritize the climate today.
Our goal is to not lower our emissions. We want to solve problems that will allow us to live a normal life. [as it is]Today,” she stated.
Thunberg continued: ‘And, of course, you can ask, “Can’t we have both?” But the uncomfortable truth is that we have left it too late for that. Or, the world leaders are too late.
“We must fundamentally transform our societies today. It would have gone much more smoothly if we had started it 30 years ago. But now it’s a different situation.’
Despite Thunberg – who led a 100,000-strong march through the streets of Glasgow during the first week of the COP26 summit – dismissing the two-week meet as a ‘greenwashing festival,’ some experts are applauding the work UN leaders achieved.
However, the experts who negotiated the deal praised the achievements made in overcoming the threat of global warming.
AFP was told by Dann Mitchell, British Met Office’s head for climate hazards, that the Glasgow Climate Pact “is more than what we expected” but not as much as we hoped.
Some say that judging the effectiveness of the measures at the summit depends on how they are viewed.
For instance, the call for 196 countries to reduce coal-fired electricity or the promise of doubling financial aid annually to $40 billion to help poor nations prepare for climate change are huge steps in the right direction.
The new provision also requires countries to set more ambitious targets to reduce carbon pollution each year than they do every five years.
Alden Meyer from E3G, senior analyst on climate and energy, stated that he sees the Glasgow result as more than half-full because he is a lifetime optimist.
“But, the atmosphere reacts to emissions — not COP decisions” – so much more work is needed to make this strong rhetoric a reality.
“Make no mistake. We are still on the path to hell,” said Dave Reay of the University of Edinburgh Climate Change Institute.
“But Glasgow has at the very least made an exit lane.”