Greta Thunberg turns down Nordic Council environmental award
29 October 2019, 23:52
The climate change activist said that "the climate change movement does not need any more awards" but for "politicians and the people in power to listen".
Greta Thunberg has turned down an environmental award and the £40,000 prize money because "bragging" will not help the planet.
The Swedish campaigner wrote in an Instagram post that although being awarded the prize is a "huge honour", she had "decided to decline".
She wrote: "What we need is for our politicians and the people in power to start to listen to the current, best available science."
Ms Thunberg also commented that Nordic countries having a "great reputation around the world when it comes to environmental issues".
However, she continued: "Our ecological footprints per capita" are a "whole other story".
She stated: "In Sweden we live as if we had about four planets, according to WWF and Global Footprint Network, and roughly the same goes for the entire Nordic region."
Ms Thunberg also wrote: "The gap between what the science says is needed to limit the increase of global temperature rise to below 1.5 or even two degrees, and politics that run the Nordic countries, is gigantic.
"And there are still no signs whatsoever of the changes required.
"We belong to the countries that have the possibility to do the most. And yet our countries still basically do nothing."
She signed the post off saying: "So until you start to act in accordance with what the science says is needed to limit the global temperature rise below 1,5 degrees or even 2 degrees celsius, I - and Fridays For Future in Sweden - choose not to accept the Nordic Councils environmental award nor the prize money of 500 000 Swedish kronor."
