Kenneth Glad
Every year, world leaders gather to promise a greener future while extreme weather breaks new records at home. For many watching from the sidelines, the gap between official speeches and real action feels wider than ever. Now, one familiar voice is back on the global stage to call out the delay.
After a five-year break from UN climate talks, Greta Thunberg returned today to deliver a blunt verdict. The 23-year-old activist took the stage at the Cop31 summit in Turkey, according to The Guardian.
Addressing delegates alongside other campaigners, she accused governments of destroying the environment rather than saving it.
“The planet is not dying, it is being killed,” Thunberg said. She added that those expected to fix the crisis are the very ones causing it.
“No one is coming to our rescue,” she warned the room.
Leaders face criticism
While Thunberg blasted official inaction, British prime minister Andy Burnham stood alone as the only G7 leader to show up, The Guardian noted.
Burnham warned that the UK’s record hot summer was “not normal” and backed a push to electrify global economies.
Campaigners remain skeptical. Beth John from Oxfam GB told the paper that Burnham’s presence “sends a positive signal,” though she stressed that “the real test of climate leadership is delivery, not declarations.”
Meanwhile, new data from Climate Action Tracker shows current policies will heat the Earth by 2.7C by 2100. That figure sits far beyond the 1.5C limit leaders previously pledged to maintain.
Real human cost
Inside the summit, delegates heard firsthand about the human toll of warming temperatures.
Nepal’s environment minister, Gita Chaudhary, described a glacier-driven landslide in August. She told The Guardian the disaster was a “mountain tsunami” that killed more than 1,500 people.
Palestinian prime minister Mohammad Mustafa received a standing ovation. He detailed how three years of war with Israel have damaged farmland and water supplies in Gaza, worsening local climate risks.
An empty seat
Noticeably absent from the talks was an official United States delegation. This follows President Donald Trump’s exit from the global climate accord, The Guardian wrote.
Former US secretary of state John Kerry attended anyway alongside Democratic lawmakers. He called Trump “the biggest loser we’ve seen in a long time on all of these issues.”
California governor Gavin Newsom offered a bleak forecast. He cautioned that despite recent midterm wins, the White House will likely “double down” on its current path.
