Is Anyone Listening?
My name is
Greta
Thunberg. I am 16 years old. I come from
Sweden. And I speak on behalf of future generations.
I know many of you don’t want to listen to us – you say we are
just children. But we’re only
repeating
the message of the united climate science.
Many of you appear concerned that we are wasting valuable lesson
time, but I assure you we will go back to school the moment you start
listening to science and give us a future. Is that really too much to
ask?
In the year 2030 I will be 26 years old. My little sister Beata
will be 23. Just like many of your own children or grandchildren.
That is a great age, we have been told. When you have all of your
life ahead of you. But I am not so sure it will be that great for us.
I was fortunate to be born in a time and place where everyone told
us to dream big; I could become whatever I wanted to. I could live
wherever I wanted to. People like me had everything we needed and
more. Things our grandparents could not even dream of. We had
everything we could ever wish for and yet now we may have nothing.
Now we probably don’t even have a future any more.
Because that future was sold so that a small number of people
could make unimaginable amounts of money. It was stolen from us every
time you said that the sky was the limit, and that you only live
once.
You lied to us. You gave us false hope. You told us that the
future was something to look forward to. And the saddest thing is
that most children are not even aware of the fate that awaits us. We
will not understand it until it’s too late. And yet we are the
lucky ones. Those who will be affected the hardest are already
suffering the consequences. But their voices are not heard.
Is my microphone on? Can you hear me?
Around the year 2030, 10 years 252 days and 10 hours away from
now, we will be in a position where we set off an irreversible chain
reaction beyond human control, that will most likely lead to the end
of our civilisation as we know it. That is unless in that time,
permanent and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society have
taken place, including a reduction of CO2 emissions by at least 50%.
And please note that these calculations are depending on
inventions that have not yet been invented at scale, inventions that
are supposed to clear the atmosphere of astronomical amounts of
carbon dioxide.
Furthermore, these calculations do not include unforeseen tipping
points and feedback loops like the extremely powerful methane gas
escaping from rapidly thawing arctic permafrost.
Nor do these scientific calculations include already locked-in
warming hidden by toxic air pollution. Nor the aspect of equity –
or climate justice – clearly stated throughout the Paris agreement,
which is absolutely necessary to make it work on a global scale.
We must also bear in mind that these are just calculations.
Estimations. That means that these “points of no return” may
occur a bit sooner or later than 2030. No one can know for sure. We
can, however, be certain that they will occur approximately in these
timeframes, because these calculations are not opinions or wild
guesses.
These projections are backed up by scientific facts, concluded by
all nations through the IPCC. Nearly every single major national
scientific body around the world unreservedly supports the work and
findings of the IPCC.
Did you hear what I just said? Is my English OK? Is the microphone
on? Because I’m beginning to wonder.
During the last six months I have travelled around Europe for
hundreds of hours in trains, electric cars and buses, repeating these
life-changing words over and over again. But no one seems to be
talking about it, and nothing has changed. In fact, the emissions are
still rising.
When I have been travelling around to speak in different
countries, I am always offered help to write about the specific
climate policies in specific countries. But that is not really
necessary. Because the basic problem is the same everywhere. And the
basic problem is that basically nothing is being done to halt – or
even slow – climate and ecological breakdown, despite all the
beautiful words and promises.
The UK is, however, very special. Not only for its mind-blowing
historical carbon debt, but also for its current, very creative,
carbon accounting.
Since 1990 the UK has achieved a 37% reduction of its territorial
CO2 emissions, according to the Global Carbon Project. And that does
sound very impressive. But these numbers do not include emissions
from aviation, shipping and those associated with imports and
exports. If these numbers are included the reduction is around 10%
since 1990 – or an an average of 0.4% a year, according to Tyndall
Manchester.
And the main reason for this reduction is not a
consequence of climate policies, but rather a 2001 EU directive on
air quality that essentially forced the UK to close down its very old
and extremely dirty coal power plants and replace them with less
dirty gas power stations. And switching from one disastrous energy
source to a slightly less disastrous one will of course result in a
lowering of emissions.
But perhaps the most dangerous misconception about the climate
crisis is that we have to “lower” our emissions. Because that is
far from enough. Our emissions have to stop if we are to stay below
1.5-2C of warming. The “lowering of emissions” is of course
necessary but it is only the beginning of a fast process that must
lead to a stop within a couple of decades, or less. And by “stop”
I mean net zero – and then quickly on to negative figures. That
rules out most of today’s politics.
The fact that we are speaking of “lowering” instead of
“stopping” emissions is perhaps the greatest force behind the
continuing business as usual. The UK’s active current support of
new exploitation of fossil fuels – for example, the UK shale gas
fracking industry, the expansion of its North Sea oil and gas fields,
the expansion of airports as well as the planning permission for a
brand new coal mine – is beyond absurd.
This ongoing irresponsible behaviour will no doubt be remembered
in history as one of the greatest failures of humankind.
People always tell me and the other millions of school strikers
that we should be proud of ourselves for what we have accomplished.
But the only thing that we need to look at is the emission curve. And
I’m sorry, but it’s still rising. That curve is the only thing we
should look at.
Every time we make a decision we should ask ourselves; how will
this decision affect that curve? We should no longer measure our
wealth and success in the graph that shows economic growth, but in
the curve that shows the emissions of greenhouse gases. We should no
longer only ask: “Have we got enough money to go through with
this?” but also: “Have we got enough of the carbon budget to
spare to go through with this?” That should and must become the
centre of our new currency.
Many people say that we don’t have any solutions to the climate
crisis. And they are right. Because how could we? How do you “solve”
the greatest crisis that humanity has ever faced? How do you “solve”
a war? How do you “solve” going to the moon for the first time?
How do you “solve” inventing new inventions?
The climate crisis is both the easiest and the hardest issue we
have ever faced. The easiest because we know what we must do. We must
stop the emissions of greenhouse gases. The hardest because our
current economics are still totally dependent on burning fossil
fuels, and thereby destroying ecosystems in order to create
everlasting economic growth.
“So, exactly how do we solve that?” you ask us – the
schoolchildren striking for the climate.
And we say: “No one knows for sure. But we have to stop burning
fossil fuels and restore nature and many other things that we may not
have quite figured out yet.”
Then you say: “That’s not an answer!”
So we say: “We have to start treating the crisis like a crisis –
and act even if we don’t have all the solutions.”
“That’s still not an answer,” you say.
Then we start talking about circular economy and rewilding nature
and the need for a just transition. Then you don’t understand what
we are talking about.
We say that all those solutions needed are not known to anyone and
therefore we must unite behind the science and find them together
along the way. But you do not listen to that. Because those answers
are for solving a crisis that most of you don’t even fully
understand. Or don’t want to understand.
You don’t listen to the science because you are only interested
in solutions that will enable you to carry on like before. Like now.
And those answers don’t exist any more. Because you did not act in
time.
Avoiding climate breakdown will require cathedral thinking. We
must lay the foundation while we may not know exactly how to build
the ceiling.
Sometimes we just simply have to find a way. The moment we decide
to fulfil something, we can do anything. And I’m sure that the
moment we start behaving as if we were in an emergency, we can avoid
climate and ecological catastrophe. Humans are very adaptable: we can
still fix this. But the opportunity to do so will not last for long.
We must start today. We have no more excuses.
We children are not sacrificing our education and our childhood
for you to tell us what you consider is politically possible in the
society that you have created. We have not taken to the streets for
you to take selfies with us, and tell us that you really admire what
we do.
We children are doing this to wake the adults up. We children are
doing this for you to put your differences aside and start acting as
you would in a crisis. We children are doing this because we want our
hopes and dreams back.
I hope my microphone was on. I hope you could all hear me.
Full text of the speech Greta
Thunberg gave to MPs at the British Houses of Parliament
