Greta Thunberg, 18, says Britain is ‘lying’ about its progress on climate change
‘We want them to stop talking and start acting’: Greta Thunberg, 18, says Britain is ‘lying’ about its progress on climate change and accuses the government of using ‘creative carbon accounting’
The 18-year-old activist claims Britain was guilty of ‘creative carbon accounting’The Swede blasted its aviation and shipping industries during a speech to UnicefShe claimed that world leaders still treat the crisis as a ‘faraway, distant problem’
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Greta Thunberg has lashed out at Britain for ‘lying’ over its climate change credentials in a stinging Unicef speech.
The climate change activist, 18, claimed the nation was guilty of ‘creative carbon accounting’ and said it was a ‘lie that the UK is a climate leader’.
The Swede blasted its aviation and shipping industries and said world leaders still treat the crisis as a ‘faraway, distant problem’.
But she was quickly slapped down by the government, which said: ‘We stand by our assertion that we are a world leader.’
And London School of Economics climate change expert Bob Ward also said she was wrong, pointing out emissions are declining.
The climate change activist, 18, claimed the nation was guilty of ‘creative carbon accounting’ and said it was a ‘lie that the UK is a climate leader’
Thunberg said: ‘There’s a lie that the UK is a climate leader and that they have reduced their CO2 emissions by 44 per cent since 1990.
‘But if you include things like aviation, shipping, outsourcing, and… consumption, for instance and the burning of biomass, it doesn’t really look that good.
‘So I’m really hoping that we will stop referring to the UK as a climate leader, because if you look at the reality that is simply not true.’
She added: ‘They are very good at creative carbon accounting, I must give them that, but that doesn’t mean much in practice.
‘We hope that they will actually start treating this crisis like an existential crisis. And I don’t know how many times we’ve said it, but we want them to stop talking and start acting.’
Thunberg also made barbed comments about Britain hosting the COP 26 climate summit. Pictured: President for COP26 Alok Sharma
Thunberg also made barbed comments about Britain hosting the COP26 climate summit.
She said she did not hold out much hope for the event in Glasgow, Scotland, in November.
But there was a swift retort from Downing Street and climate change experts denying her claims.
A government spokesman said: ‘We stand by our assertion that we are a world leader.’
And LSE’s Mr Ward, from the university’s Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change, said she was wrong.
Mr Ward added that the UK ‘is reducing its emissions whilst expanding its economy’.
Thunberg aired her attacks at the launch of a Unicef report showing a billion children in 33 mostly African low-emission countries faced extreme weather and poverty.
The devastating UN report found virtually no child will escape the impact of global warming.
In the first index of its kind, published on Friday, Unicef found almost all the world’s 2.2 billion children are exposed to at least one climate or environmental risk.
Last week a UN climate panel of the world’s top atmospheric scientists warned global warming is dangerously close to spiralling out of control, with deadly heat waves, hurricanes and other extreme events likely to keep getting worse.
Thunberg said the Unicef index confirmed children would be the worst affected and when world leaders meet for the COP26 they needed to act rather than just talk.
‘I don’t expect them to do that, but I would be more than happy if they could prove me wrong,’ she told journalists ahead of the index’s publication on the third anniversary of Fridays For Future, a now-global youth movement that started with her solo protest outside her Swedish school.
Thunberg was joined by young activists around the world including Mitzi Jonelle Tan, 23, from the Philippines, who spoke of doing homework by candlelight as typhoons raged outside or fearing drowning in her bed as floodwaters filled her room.
After months of extreme weather and dire warnings from scientists, world leaders’ ’empty promises and vague plans’ were no longer enough, Tan said.
‘There’s no excuse for this COP… to not be the one that changes things.’
Henrietta Fore, UNICEF executive director said young people globally were leading by example, pointing to a survey by the organisation that found nine in ten of them in 21 countries felt it was their responsibility to tackle climate change.
They were more at risk than adults in the ‘increasingly unrecognisable’ world they stood to inherit, she said, being less able to survive extreme weather events and more susceptible to toxic chemicals, temperature changes and disease.
The UNICEF index showing around one billion children in 33 mostly African low-emission countries faced a ‘deadly combination’ of extreme weather and existing issues like poverty, making them uniquely vulnerable.
