Greta Thunberg accuses Davos billionaires of ‘fuelling the destruction of the planet’

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg criticized business and political leaders attending the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday, saying it was “absurd” to listen to them fueling “the destruction of the planet”.

Two days after she was briefly detained by police at a protest against a coal mine in Germany, Thunberg and other young activists took part in a discussion on the sidelines of a summit of global investors, CEOs and political leaders in the Swiss Alps.

“We’re in Davos right now, where (there are) basically the people who are mostly fueling the destruction of the planet,” said the 20-year-old, explaining that the world should not depend on them “to solve our problems.”

He added that it was “absurd…it seems like we are listening to them instead of the people who are actually affected by the climate crisis.”

Climate activist Greta Thunberg from Sweden speaking with (L-R) Fatih Birol, director of the International Energy Agency, and climate activists Luise Neubauer from Germany, Helena Gualinga from Ecuador, Vanessa Nakate from Uganda

Two days after she was briefly detained by police at a protest against a coal mine in Germany, Thunberg and other young activists took part in a discussion on the sidelines of a summit of global investors, CEOs and political leaders in the Swiss Alps.

“Without massive public pressure from outside, these people will go as far as they can… They will continue to throw people under the bus for their own benefit,” he said.

The Swede spoke on the sidelines of the WEF with fellow activists Helena Gualinga from Ecuador, Vanessa Nakate from Uganda and Luisa Neubauer from Germany on a CNBC panel that included International Energy Agency director Fatih Birol.

The Swede caused a sensation when she attended the forum as a teenager in January 2020, warning that “our house is still on fire” and complaining that her demands had been “totally ignored”.

Then-US President Donald Trump used his speech at the same forum to criticize the ‘perennial prophets of doom’ as Thunberg stared stone-faced at the audience.

This week, she and Gualinga, Nakate and Neubauer launched an online petition demanding that energy companies halt any new oil, gas or coal extraction projects, or face possible legal action.

More than 900,000 people had signed the petition as of Thursday.

Thunberg arrived in Davos shortly after being released by German police after protesting the expansion of a coal mine in Germany.

We are taking a very dangerous path. We are already seeing how people are suffering on the ground,” Gualinga said.

“It is completely insane that we are allowing this and we have people here in Davos who are allowing it, through the government, by investing in fossil fuels and at some point there has to be a stop. This is criminal behaviour,’ he said.

Birol, as head of a multilateral energy agency that mainly advises Western governments, said his presence alongside the activists was “a very important signal that I want to give to the world.”

‘We have to see that climate change needs to receive more attention. Unfortunately, attention on climate change is waning,” she said.

The energy sector had to be transformed or ‘we have no chance of meeting our climate targets’.

The IEA said in a report in October that the energy crisis triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was sparking changes that could speed up the transition to a “more sustainable and secure energy system.”

Thunberg was among a group of people dragged away by police on Tuesday during a protest near the German village of Luetzerath, which is being razed to make way for a coal mine expansion. They were not formally arrested.

His actions were praised at Davos by former US Vice President Al Gore, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on climate change.

“I agree with your efforts to stop that coal mine,” Gore said at a panel discussion on global warming, adding that young people around the world are despairing of leaders’ efforts to address the climate crisis.

“We are not winning” the fight against global warming, he said.

Climate change is a major topic at the World Economic Forum, where companies and governments have come under pressure to do more to ensure the world meets the increasingly elusive target of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

In a speech on Wednesday, the head of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, drew a parallel between the actions of oil companies and those of tobacco companies, which were ultimately hit by expensive lawsuits over the harmful effects of cigarettes.

Guterres pointed to a study published in the journal Science last week that said ExxonMobil had dismissed the findings of its own scientists, who had accurately predicted global warming due to fossil fuels since the late 1970s.

“Some at Big Oil sold the big lie,” he said. “And just like the tobacco industry, those responsible must be held accountable.”