At Davos, Greta Thunberg to again demand stopping of new oil, gas or coal extraction projects

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg will be at Davos on Thursday where she is once again going to take up the matter of fossil fuels. Two days back, Thunberg was briefly detained at a protest against a coal mine in Germany. She, along with other young climate campaigners, will take part in a debate with the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA), Fatih Birol, on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum.

Thunberg and fellow activists Helena Gualinga of Ecuador, Vanessa Nakate of Uganda and Luisa Neubauer of Germany launched an online petition earlier this week, demanding energy firms to stop any new oil, gas or coal extraction projects, challenging them with legal action.

More than 870,000 people had signed the petition by late Wednesday.

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"Enough is enough," Gualinga told AFP earlier this week. "We have to leave oil under the earth."

Also Read |Greta Thunberg released after detention in Germany over coal village protests: Police

The four of them will discuss with Birol calls to end new investments in fossil fuels and what should be done to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the organisers said.

The IEA has said that Russia's invasion of Ukraine has caused an energy crisis which can hasten the transition to a "more sustainable and secure energy system".

The 20-year-old Swede had made headlines when she attended the summit in January 2020. She had warned that "our house is still on fire" and displayed anger about the fact that her demands had been "completely ignored".

Then-US president Donald Trump was also at the summit and took a dig at Thunberg by bashing "the perennial prophets of doom" in his speech.

Earlier this week, Thunberg was detained during a protest near the German village of Luetzerath. The village is being razed to make way for a coal mine expansion. Former US vice president Al Gore, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work on climate change, praised Thunberg at Davos.

"I agree with her efforts to stop that coal mine," Gore told a panel discussion on global warming."We are not winning" the fight against global warming, he said.

Climate change is a major topic at the World Economic Forum. Businesses and governments have been put under the hammer on the topic and on their efforts to ensure that the world meets the increasingly elusive goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degree Celsius.

(With inputs from agencies)

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