ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½

Skip to main content

Greta Thunberg: COP27 an opportunity for 'greenwashing, lying and cheating'

Share
LONDON -

Climate activist Greta Thunberg on Sunday called out next month's United Nations climate summit in Egypt for being "held in a tourist paradise in a country that violates many basic human rights."

Speaking at the London Literature Festival at the Southbank Centre where she was promoting her new book, "The Climate Book," 19-year-old Thunberg dismissed the looming climate summit, known as COP27, as an opportunity for "people in power... to greenwashing, lying and cheating."

While Thunberg did attend protests in Glasgow last year for COP26, she said she won't attend COP27, scheduled to be held from Nov. 6 to Nov. 18 in Sharm El Sheikh.

"The space for civil society is going to be extremely limited," she said. "It's important to leave space for those who need to be there. It will be difficult for activists to make their voices heard."

Public demonstration is effectively banned in Egypt and limits on accreditation and attendance badges for activists have been a point of contention at previous UN climate summits.

Thunberg rose to prominence in 2018 at the age of 15 by staging school strikes in her native Sweden, becoming the face of the youth activist climate movement.

During Sunday's event, she decried the "sustainability crisis" as a "crisis of information not getting through."

Her book includes explanatory articles from over 100 climate experts, including renowned climate scientists Katharine Hayhoe and Michael Mann, as well as authors including Margaret Atwood.

"I wanted it to be educational, which is a bit ironic since my thing is school strikes," she said.

Asked to comment on recent protest actions by Just Stop Oil activists which saw them throw soup at Vincent van Gogh's 'Sunflowers' at London's National Gallery, Thunberg said, "People are trying to find new methods because we realize that what we have been doing up until now has not done the trick. It's only reasonable to expect these kinds of different actions."

(Reporting by Gloria Dickie in London; editing by Diane Craft)

CTVNews.ca ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½

Since she was a young girl growing up in Vancouver, Ginny Lam says her mom Yat Hei Law made it very clear she favoured her son William, because he was her male heir.

The province's public security minister said he was "shocked" Thursday amid reports that a body believed to be that of a 14-year-old boy was found this week near a Hells Angels hideout near Quebec City.

An Ontario man says it is 'unfair' to pay a $1,500 insurance surcharge because his four-year-old SUV is at a higher risk of being stolen.

Emergency crews in northern Ontario found the bodies of four people inside a home where a fire broke out Thursday night.

The Montreal couple from Mexico and their three children facing deportation have received a temporary residence permit.

Local Spotlight

They say a dog is a man’s best friend. In the case of Darren Cropper, from Bonfield, Ont., his three-year-old Siberian husky and golden retriever mix named Bear literally saved his life.

A growing group of brides and wedding photographers from across the province say they have been taken for tens of thousands of dollars by a Barrie, Ont. wedding photographer.

Paleontologists from the Royal B.C. Museum have uncovered "a trove of extraordinary fossils" high in the mountains of northern B.C., the museum announced Thursday.

The search for a missing ancient 28-year-old chocolate donkey ended with a tragic discovery Wednesday.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police is celebrating an important milestone in the organization's history: 50 years since the first women joined the force.

It's been a whirlwind of joyful events for a northern Ontario couple who just welcomed a baby into their family and won the $70 million Lotto Max jackpot last month.

A Good Samaritan in New Brunswick has replaced a man's stolen bottle cart so he can continue to collect cans and bottles in his Moncton neighbourhood.

David Krumholtz, known for roles like Bernard the Elf in The Santa Clause and physicist Isidor Rabi in Oppenheimer, has spent the latter part of his summer filming horror flick Altar in Winnipeg. He says Winnipeg is the most movie-savvy town he's ever been in.

Edmontonians can count themselves lucky to ever see one tiger salamander, let alone the thousands one local woman says recently descended on her childhood home.