Weather: COP25 Greta Thunberg Climatestrike in Madrid Thousands of people are demonstrating on the sidelines of the 25th UN Climate Change Conference for more climate protection. Concrete results are urgently needed, calls activist Greta Thunberg.
Climate Conference - "I hope that the 25th Climate Conference produces something concrete"
Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg warned of satisfaction in Madrid. Despite the climate strike, nothing has changed so far.
Thousands of people took to the streets of Madrid at the 25th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP25) for better climate protection. At the demonstration under the slogan "The world woke up in the face of the climate crisis", the Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg also participated. Previously, she participated in a sit-in with around 40 other young people.
The demonstration led five kilometers through the center of Madrid and was peaceful, with a large police force and helicopters in action. Activists held placards with inscriptions like "Without a planet, there is no future" and "Politician who dies earth". The demonstration also had artistic elements: a protester held up a large globe with a skeleton, others symbolically buried the earth in a coffin, some were disguised as insects. "2019 is undoubtedly the year in which people have awakened in terms of the climate," said Pablo Chamorro, the protesters' spokesman. The Spanish movie star Javier Bardem also took part in the protest procession.
COP25 in Madrid: Climate Change Conference Summit in Spain can it save the world?
Shortly before the protests began, Thunberg, at a joint press conference with other youth climate activists from Spain and Uganda, called on governments around the world to step up their efforts to fight climate change. "We can not afford to wait any longer," said the 16-year-old. "People are suffering or dying because of the climate crisis."
The voices of climate activists have been heard more since the beginning of the "school strike for the climate" initiated by them. However, concrete changes have not yet occurred: "We have been on strike for more than a year, and virtually nothing has happened - the climate crisis is still being ignored by those in power," criticized Thunberg. Although the COP26 next year is considered a much more important climate summit than this year, because then, according to the Paris Agreement, more ambitious targets in the fight against global warming should be presented. "But we can not afford half summits, we have to seize every opportunity," she said.
Thunberg had especially traveled to Madrid for a demonstration. Previously, she attracted attention in New York with an appeal to the United Nations. From there she originally wanted to travel to the Chilean capital Santiago, where the climate conference was to take place. When she was transferred to Madrid due to the social protests in Chile, Thunberg traveled by catamaran across the Atlantic to Portugal and from there by train to Madrid. "I do not think anybody saw me," she wrote on Twitter in response to the high level of media coverage on her arrival.
The climate conference was opened on Monday and will take place until Friday of next week. In total, representatives of 200 states are participating in the summit. From next week on the ministerial level will be negotiated. A major topic at the conference is the concrete design of trading in CO2 emission allowances, which should encourage thrift in CO2 consumption.
