Greta Thunberg urges people to call out world leaders on their ‘bulls**t’ over emissions targets

vt-author-image

By VT

Article saved!Article saved!

Greta Thunberg used Earth Day to blast world leaders for their "insufficient" climate targets.

Taking to Twitter on Thursday (April 22), the 18-year-old shared a video which she said was an "emergency alert for the general public". In the four-minute piece, Thunberg urged the public to "call out their bulls**t" - referring to world leaders.

As for these "bulls**t" targets, President Biden has pledged to halve the US's greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, the EU has pledged a 55% reduction, and the UK plans to cut emissions by 68%.

China, which has the highest emissions of all, promised to be carbon-neutral by 2060.

But according to the Swedish climate activist, these pledges are "full of gaps and loopholes".

Check out her video here:

Thunberg says in the video: "At the leaders' summit countries will present their new climate commitments, like 'net zero emissions by 2050'.

"They will call these hypothetical targets 'ambitious'. But when you compare our insufficient targets with the overall current best available science, you clearly see there’s a gap. There are decades missing.

"Of course we welcome all efforts to safeguard present and future living conditions, and these targets could be a great start, if it wasn’t for the fact they are full of gaps and loopholes."

Thunberg goes on to say that some of these loopholes mean that emissions from imported goods, international aviation, shipping, and the burning of biomass will not be included in these so-called ambitious targets.

She then says that the targets are "completely relying on future, fantasy-scaled, currently barely-existing, negative emissions technologies".

size-full wp-image-1263104418
Credit: Franz Perc / Alamy Stock Photo

The teen adds: "We can keep cheating in order to pretend that these targets are in line with what’s needed, but while we can fool others – and even ourselves – we cannot fool nature and physics. The emissions are still there, whether we choose to count them or not.

"The gap between the urgency needed and the current level of awareness and attention in becoming more and more absurd. And the gap between our so-called climate targets and the overall best available science should no longer be possible to ignore."

Thunberg describes this gap as "the biggest elephant that has ever found itself in any room."

Biden is currently hosting a two-day virtual climate summit in which 40 countries come together to discuss the global climate crisis.

Featured image credit: Jasper Chamber / Alamy Stock Photo