Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg has accused New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinta Ardern of ‘not doing anything’ to stop global warming.
The climate change activist sparked the global School Strike for Climate movement which saw over four million students walk out of classes in March 2019.
Known for her hardline views on emission reduction and extreme demands of worlds leaders, she claimed she ‘can’t think of a single politician’ whose actions to combat climate change impressed her.
Climate change activist Greta Thunberg has claimed that there isn’t a single politician that has impressed her (pictured, Ms Thunberg addresses a climate march in Berlin)
When asked about Ms Ardern who in June said climate change was a matter of ‘life and death’, she took a brutal swipe at the left-wing Kiwi leader.
‘It’s funny that people believe Jacinda Ardern and people like that are climate leaders. That just tells you how little people know about the climate crisis,’ she told The Guardian.
‘Obviously the emissions haven’t fallen. It goes without saying that these people are not doing anything.’
NZ Climate Change Minister James Shaw said Ms Thunberg was correct in saying the country’s carbon footprint hadn’t yet decreased – but it would.
When asked about New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinta Ardern (pictured), Ms Thunberg said that ‘these people are not doing anything’
‘That is why the work our Government is doing is so important – and clearly we have a lot of work to do,’ Mr Shaw told Stuff.
In December 2020, New Zealand declared a climate emergency and pledged to decarbonise the public sector by 2025.
Ms Thunberg took to twitter claiming the move was hardly a positive step forward.
‘In other words, the government has just committed to reducing less than one per cent of the country’s emissions by 2025,’ she tweeted on December 13, 2020.
‘Text explaining New Zealand’s so-called climate emergency declaration. This is of course nothing unique to any nation.’
Ms Ardern said at the time in response that the teenager hardliner’s criticism was unfair as her government intended to do far more.
‘If that was the sum ambition of any government, then that would be worthy of criticism; it is not our sum ambition and it is not the totality of our plans on climate change,’ she said.
‘But again, I think that it is actually for us just to get on with the business of fulfilling our obligations and expectations.’
After the swipe, New Zealand’s Climate Chance Minister James Shaw said that Ms Thunberg was right in saying their carbon footprint hadn’t reduced (pictured, Ms Thunberg in Germany)
In the year to March 2020, the country’s greenhouse gas emissions decreased by 4.5 per cent, but began slowly increasing towards the end of the calendar year.
But the New Zealand Government will release a detailed plan to bring emissions down in 2022, and Mr Shaw said the country would enhance its contribution to the Paris Agreement.
The Climate Commission wants New Zealand to meet a reduced ‘carbon budget’ – the amount of emissions a country produces each year.
As much as Ms Thunberg advocates for climate change, she conceded her stance has affected her family.
Ms Thunberg also slammed New Zealand’s declaration of a climate emergency on Twitter (pictured, Ms Ardern)
She claimed she and her family often have people filming them from outside their home, and attempting to break in.
Violence against climate change activists is very prevalent across the globe, she claimed.
Campaign group Global Witness alleged more than 220 activists have been murdered this year while working to protect the environment and land rights.
Now 18-years-old, Ms Thunberg lives out of home, to escape the adoring fans that also flock to the doorstep of the Thunberg family home.