Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg inveighed against the sowers of “climate chaos” at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday, offering a view of the world that stood in stark contrast to President Trump’s.
In two speeches at the conference, the 17-year-old Thunberg renewed the call to “start listening to the science” on climate change. The world, she said, needs to “treat this crisis with the importance it deserves.”
Thunberg’s remarks echoed her warning in Davos last year, when she told world leaders: “I don’t want your hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act.”
The Swedish teenager’s activism helped inspire a global climate action movement, which earned her Time magazine’s Person of the Year title in December.
“Without treating it as a real crisis, we cannot solve it,” Thunberg said at the annual conference, which brings together political and economic leaders from around the world.
In a second speech on Tuesday afternoon, Thunberg said: “Our house is still on fire. Your inaction is fueling the flames by the hour. And we are telling you to act as if you loved your children above all else."
While she and Trump did not mention each other directly in their speeches, their remarks represented a head-on collision of worldviews.
Trump said he was a “big believer in the environment” but did not single out climate change and lashed out at “alarmists.” He said the United States will participate in a plan to add 1 trillion trees worldwide — a plan that climate activists argued would not even begin to scratch the surface.
During her afternoon panel, Thunberg said, “Planting trees is good, of course, but it’s nowhere near enough of what is needed."
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