'It is not a secret, COP26 a failure’: Greta Thunberg

By Ahmet Gurhan Kartal and Aysu Bicer

GLASGOW, Scotland (AA) - The COP26 summit being held in Glasgow has failed and it is no secret, Swedish climate change activist Greta Thunberg said Friday.

Speaking to thousands of people who filled Glasgow’s main George Square, Thunberg said the COP26 has just turned into “a PR event,” where leaders are giving beautiful speeches and announcing commitments and targets, while the governments of the “global north countries" are still “refusing to address climate action.”

Describing the UN Climate Change Conference as “a two-week-long celebration of business as usual, blah, blah, blah,” Thunberg underlined that the world needs “immediate addressing of annual emission.”

“This is the uncomfortable result of loneliness, repeated failure to address this crisis.”

“And the question we must now ask ourselves is 'what is it that we are fighting for?',” Thunberg asked.

“Are we fighting to save ourselves in the living planets? Or are we fighting to maintain business as usual?"

“Only to say that we can have both,” she said.

She said “that is not possible in practice,” adding that “the people in power can continue to live their problem, their fantasies, like eternal growth on a finite planet and technological solutions that will suddenly appear seemingly out of nowhere and erase all of these crises just like that.”

Thunberg said the world “doesn't need any more distant, non-binding pledges.”

“Yet, that is all that we are getting.”

Thunberg also said the world leaders “continue to expand fossil fuel infrastructure, opening up new coal mines, coal power plants, granting new oil licenses, and still refusing to do even the bare minimum.”

“This is shameful,” she added.

The Climate Strike protest saw a few thousand people filling Glasgow’s center as climate change activists marched there from other parts of the city.

Other activists also gave speeches in the event that came on the sixth day of COP26.

The activists are planning to attend a massive protest on Saturday, while thousands are expected to be on the streets for Scottish independence and to protest for action on climate change.