Greta Thunberg issues urgent warning at UN climate talks: 'Everything we love is at stake'

Résumé détaillé

This year’s conference is taking place in the Turkish city of Antalya

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Climate campaigner Greta Thunberg arrived at the UN climate summit on Tuesday, launching a sharp critique of the annual gathering as hypocritical and calling on world leaders to place people and the planet ahead of financial gain and geopolitical power.

The COP31 conference, taking place in the Turkish resort city of Antalya, follows a year marked by destructive weather events, including lethal floods and heatwaves, alongside energy market turbulence triggered by the Iran war.

"It’s a hypocrisy every year that the host countries are given an opportunity to whitewash themselves and we know that these negotiations are filled with lobbyists, paid by the very destructive industries which are benefiting from our extremely violent status quo," Thunberg said upon arrival. "Our political and economic systems that have become incompatible with human nature."

Turkey is co-hosting the summit alongside Australia. While both nations are promoting renewable energy expansion and rooftop solar power, both continue to rely heavily on fossil fuels, particularly coal, for electricity generation. Previous host nations, including Brazil, the United Arab Emirates, and Azerbaijan, are major oil producers.

Climate change is "threatening everything”, Thunberg warned, stating that "everything and everyone we love is at stake."

"We should act to protect and benefit people rather than constantly sacrificing the global majority and the very planet we are all living on, for a fortunate few to keep making unimaginable profits and maintaining geopolitical power," she said.

Her appearance in Antalya marks the first UN climate summit Thunberg has attended since the 2021 gathering in Glasgow, Scotland, where she famously dismissed international pledges as "blah, blah, blah."

The Swedish activist first came to public attention in 2018 when, aged 15, she began a solitary "School Strike for…

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