Swedish climate activist
Greta Thunberg and her fellow youth campaigners are sceptical of the kind of
action expected in this week’s climate talks in Italy. Speaking at the opening
session of a Youth4Climate event on Tuesday, Thunberg called multilateral
government efforts at tackling climate change “thirty years of blah, blah, blah”.

Thousands of youth
activists from around the world have converged in Milan this week. Nearly 400 of
them will engage with policymakers to hammer out proposals for possible
solutions. But Thunberg is not hopeful of the kind of impact such discussions
will have.

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“So-called leaders
have cherry picked young people to meetings like this to pretend they are
listening to us, but they are not listening. There is no planet B…Change is not
only possible but necessary, but not if we go on like we have until today,”
Thunberg said.

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Youth activists
who got climate change to the top of the global agenda years after leaders at
the 1992 Rio Summit in Brazil pledged to tackle environmental problems, are
being challenged to come up with solutions ahead of the COP26 United Nations
summit in November, according to Reuters.

Proposals made by
these youth activists will be vetted by energy and climate ministers gathering
at the same place ahead of their pre-COP26 meeting. Some will end up at the
Glasgow summit.

The United Nations
COP26 conference is aimed at securing more ambitious climate action from the
nearly 200 countries who signed the 2015 Paris Agreement and agreed to try and
limit global warming to 1.5°C.

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“Young people need
to start getting involved in the actual negotiations,” Ugandan youth delegate
Rose Kobusinge said adding “we want 1.5 and we won’t go beyond that”.

Britain’s COP26
President Alok Sharma said, “Now is the time for leaders of the biggest
economies and biggest greenhouse gas emitters to make much bolder commitments.”