Greta Thunberg has announced at COP25 in Madrid that she realises she has a platform but that she will share it with the world’s most vulnerable people for whom climate change is a reality today. This press conference took place on the morning of 9th December 2019 and includes personal statements from representatives of indigenous peoples on the frontlines of the climate crisis.
Watch Greta Thunberg’s full press conference with representatives from vulnerable nations:
One of the speakers from Chile, Angela Valenzuela, spoke out pointing a finger at the Chilean government for coming to the UN and behaving as nothing has happened. She said angrily that since the COP was relocated to Madrid the world’s mainstream media had stopped reporting on the dire situation there.
On the climate crisis, Valenzuela said, “Chile woke up. We said we cannot support a system that ignores the climate crisis… Chile woke up, and the world is waking up too!”
Fridays For Future represents a new voice in the world who are doggedly prepared to speak truth to power in a world that is already looking chaotic, both climatically and politically.
These issues cut across gender, environmental racism, and intergenerational injustice. Making the right choice to tackle the climate crisis should be the easiest choice to make, however, as Rose Ripple from the US indigenous peoples said, “This colonial institution continually favours corporate profits.” She went on to say, “Our movements must be bigger than recycling and bolder than holding signs!”
Watch: Interview with Fridays For Future spokesperson at COP25:
Leonie Bremer talks to Nick Breeze about how the climate crisis is creating personal panic and explains why we have to help the world’s most vulnerable: