COP26 turned into a PR event, it's a failure: Greta Thunberg

Greta Thunberg has lashed out at the ongoing International Climate Conference in Glasgow for being “a failure” so far, and accused the leaders of actively creating loopholes in the rules and greenwashing their countries’ emissions.

“It is not a secret that COP26 is a failure,” Thunberg said, speaking at a rally outside the conference venue.

Further, Thunberg pointed out that the COP26 has turned into “a PR event”, where leaders are “giving beautiful speeches and announcing fancy commitments and targets while behind the curtains, the governments of the global north countries are refusing to take any drastic climate action.”

“World leaders are obviously scared of the truth, yet no matter how hard they try, they cannot escape it,” Thunberg said. “They cannot ignore the scientific consensus, and above all they cannot ignore us – the people, including their own children,” she added.

The teenage activist said that the world needs immediate, drastic annual emission cuts “unlike anything the world has ever seen before”, to stay below the target set in the Paris agreement.

Also read: All eyes on COP26 as carbon emissions return to pre-pandemic levels

Thousands of campaigners, including many youths, marched through the streets of Glasgow on Friday, demanding urgent action from world leaders at the UN climate conference to stave off catastrophic climate change. They protested largely voluntary resolutions made at the conference, and accused world leaders of excluding the biggest polluters, or setting deadlines decades away.

“And COP26 has been named the most exclusionary COP ever. This is no longer a climate conference. This is now a global north greenwash festival. A two-week long celebration of business as usual,” Thunberg said.

“The question we must now ask ourselves is ‘what is it that we are fighting for?’ Are we fighting to save ourselves and the living planet or are we fighting to maintain business as usual? They cannot ignore our screams as we reclaim our power. We are tired of their blah blah blah. Our leaders are not leading,” Thunberg said at Glasgow.