PLANET: For the young activist, Greta Thunberg, the climate movement needs, above all, that the leaders in power begin to “listen” to science.
Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg on Tuesday refused an environmental award, saying the climate movement did not need a prize, but that ruling officials are beginning to “listen” to “science”.
The girl, who rallied millions of people to her Fridays for Future movement, was honoured at a ceremony organized in Stockholm by the Nordic Council, a regional body for interparliamentary cooperation. Thunberg was nominated for both Sweden and Norway and won the organization’s annual environmental award.
“The beautiful words are not lacking”
But after the announcement, one of its representatives told the public that it would not accept the price or the sum of 350,000 Danish kroner (about 46,800 euros), reported the TT news agency. “The climate movement does not need other prices,” she posted on Instagram from the United States. “What we need is for our politicians and the people in power to start listening to the best existing science.”
While thanking the Nordic Council for this “great honour”, it also blamed the Nordic countries for not being up to their “high reputation” on climate issues. “We do not fail to brag about it. The beautiful words are not lacking. But when it comes to our real emissions and our ecological footprint per capita (…) it’s quite another thing, “said the muse of the fight against political inaction in the face of global warming.
Despite being only 16 years old, Greta Thunberg became famous when she began to spend her Fridays in front of the Swedish Parliament in August 2018, waving a “School Strike for Climate” sign.
