Greta Thunberg will not go if vaccine nationalism continues

LONDON – Adolescent climate activist Greta Thunberg has said she will not attend the high-profile UN climate change summit if current vaccination trends continue.

Thunberg tweeted on Friday morning in response to a BBC report saying he “had no plans” to attend the summit, known as COP26, which will take place in Glasgow, Scotland, in November.

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

He argued that many countries were vaccinating “healthy young people” against Covid-19 at the expense of higher-risk groups and front-line workers from 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 be equally represented, this would be “undemocratic.”

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

High-income countries have been accused of vaccine nationalism as they have bought more than 4.6 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines, according to data released in March by the Duke Global Health Innovation Center. In comparison, low-income countries have achieved only 670 million doses of vaccines.

Thunberg also said on his Twitter thread that even if the COP26 summit were to be delayed due to the pandemic, this “does not mean we need to delay the urgent action needed” on climate change. .

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

“We don’t have to wait for conferences, or anyone or anything else to start drastically reducing our emissions,” Thunberg said.

At the same time, the activist said that a virtual conference would be “far from optimal”, given the lack of access to the Internet and high-speed computers in certain parts of the world, which would also limit representation equal to summit.