Thunberg has hope for climate, despite leaders' inaction

Preparing for her appearance before U.N. General Assembly last fall, Greta Thunberg found herself constantly interrupted by world leers, including U.N. chief Antonio Guterres and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who h formed a queue to speak to her and take selfies.

“Jacinda Ardern, prime minister of New Zealand, waits in line but doesn’t quite make it before it’s time for event to start,” Thunberg recalls.

Such surreal memories for a teenr form opening to a 75-minute mologue brocast on Swedish public rio Saturday that soon shifts to serious matter of climate change that’s at heart of Thunberg’s work.

17-year-old has become a global figurehe of  youth climate movement since she started her one-woman protests outside Swedish parliament in 2018.

Thunberg's blunt words to presidents and prime ministers, peppered with scientific facts about need to urgently cut greenhouse gas emissions, have won her praise and awards, but also occasional pushback and even death threats.

To Thunberg's disappointment, her mess doesn't seem to be getting through even to those leers who applaud her work.

mess is certainly stark: Thunberg cites a U.N. report that estimates world can only keep emitting current amount of carbon dioxide for next seven-and-a-half years. Any longer and it becomes impossible to meet Paris climate accord’s ambitious goal of keeping global temperatures from rising by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) this century.

Most governments refuse to accept idea that world has only a fixed “carbon budget” left, because it implies that a sudden shift away from fossil fuel will need to happen in just a few years.

“Do you remember London Olympics? ‘Gangnam Style’ or first ‘Hunger Games’ movie?" Thunberg asks her audience on Swedish rio station P1. "Those things all happened about seven or eight years ago. That's amount of time we're talking about.”

Her months-long journey from Sweden to America's West Coast and back — by train,

It also opened her eyes to ecomic and social disparities affecting in particular

“ climate and sustainability crisis is t a fair crisis,” Thunberg says. “ ones who’ll be hit hardest from its consequences are often ones who have done least to cause problem in first place. ”

Her frustration extends to journalists who want to kw about “ real Greta” but interrupt her when she talks about science of climate change.

“People want something simple and concrete, and y want me to be naive, angry, childish, and emotional,” Thunberg says. “That is story that sells and creates most s.”

Thunberg blasts governments and businesses that use what she calls “creative accounting” to makes ir emissions look lower than y are and apply word “green” to industries that are t.

“ emperors are naked. Every single one," she says. “It turns out our whole society is just one big nudist party."

Some critics have accused Thunberg of being a doom-monger. But she insists that her mess is one of hope, t despair.

“re are signs of change, of awakening,” she says. “Just take ‘Me Too’ movement, ‘Black Lives Matter’ or school strike movement (for climate action) for instance,” she says, ding that world has passed a “social tipping point” where it becomes impossible to look away.

global response to COVID-19 pandemic may provide a necessary wake-up call, she suggests.

“ corona trdy of course has long term positive effects on climate, apart from one thing only: namely insight into how you should perceive and treat an emergency. Because during corona crisis we suddenly act with necessary force."