Greta Thunberg will not go if the vaccine nationalism continues

LONDON – Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg has said she will not attend the United Nations’ High Climate Change Summit if current vaccination trends continue.

Thunberg tweeted on Friday morning in response to a BBC report stating that she “has no plans” to attend the COP26 summit in Glasgow, Scotland in November.

“Of course I would love to attend COP26 in Glasgow. But not unless everyone can participate on the same terms,” ​​Thunberg tweeted.

She argued that many countries had vaccinated ‘healthy young people’ against Covid-19 at the expense of higher-risk groups and front-line workers in other countries.

Thurberg said inequality was already at the heart of the climate crisis, adding that if ‘people could not be vaccinated and travel to the summit to represent equally, it would be’ undemocratic ‘. ”

“Vaccination nationalism will not solve the pandemic,” Thunberg said, arguing that “global problems need global solutions.”

According to data released by the Duke Global Health Innovation Center in March, high-income countries have been accused of vaccinating nationalism because they bought more than 4.6 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines. By comparison, low-income countries received only 670 million doses of the vaccine.

Thunberg also said in her Twitter thread that even if the COP26 summit had to be delayed due to the pandemic, it does not mean that we should delay the urgent action on climate change.

Sky News reported last week that the summit could be delayed for the second time due to the pandemic.

“We do not have to wait for conferences, nor do we have to have someone or something else dramatically reduce our emissions,” Thunberg said.

At the same time, the activist said that a virtual conference would be ‘far from optimal’, given the lack of high-speed internet and computer access in certain parts of the world, which would also limit equal representation at the top.