SWITZERLAND: Climate activist Greta Thunberg on Thursday, at a round table discussion at Davos, said that a letter was addressed to the chief executives to cease opening new gas and oil extraction sites.
In addition to Greta Thunberg, the round table discussion was held in the presence of a lot of climate campaigners like Helena Gualinga from Ecuador, Venessa Nakate from Uganda, Luisa Neubauer from Germany, and the IEA head Fatih Birol.
The energy industries were blamed for having seized the climate change debate at the World Economic Forum (WEF) that Thunberg is refusing to participate as an official delegate this year after the conference came back to its original form post-pandemic gap.
Low-carbon economies have resulted in the oil and gas industries to get involve in the energy transition process due to the inevitability of the presence of fossil fuels in the world’s energy mix in light of global energy security concerns.
In addition to the energy companies, financial institutions backing the use of fossil fuels by investing in them were also called out. Thunberg attended the WEF meeting in the year 2019 at the age of 16, telling all present that “our house is on fire.”
IEA Chief commented that he had been more hopeful about switching to clean energy. He also admitted that certain developing countries might not have the resources and might be left behind if advanced countries do not support that transition.
A loss and damage fund was established at the United Nations climate conference held in Egypt, promising an adequate concession would be given to countries that were most affected by climate change events.
Venessa Natake, who had previously conducted a solitary protest outside the Ugandan Parliament in 2019, commented on the absence of such a fund in the first place, saying that the fund “is still an empty bucket with no money at all” and that “there is a need for real money for loss and damage.”
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