At Davos, Thunberg visit spotlights lack of climate action

DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) — Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg on Thursday slammed corporate bigwigs meeting in Davos, Switzerland, for “fueling the destruction of the planet” by investing in fossil fuels and prioritizing short-term profits over people affected by the climate crisis.

Thunberg was joined by prominent young activists Vanessa Nakate, Helena Gualinga and Luisa Neubauer in a roundtable with International Energy Agency Executive Director Fatih Birol at the World Economic Forum’s annual gathering.

Nakate, who at one point choked up, said “leaders are playing games” with people's futures.

People in parts of the world most affected by climate change are "clinging to their lives and just trying to make it for another day, to make it for another week, to make it for another hour, another minute,” she said.

Gualinga, an Ecuadorian indigenous campaigner, said the world is “taking a really dangerous path.”

The activists brought a “cease and desist” letter calling on the heads of fossil fuel companies to stop all new oil and natural gas projects, signed by nearly 900,000 people. Scientists say no new fossil fuel projects can be built if the world is to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) in line with climate goals set in Paris in 2015.

Nakate added that current levels of warming, which have reached up to 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.2 F), means it is “already a living hell for many communities across the African continent, across the Global South” who are facing extreme drought, heat and flooding.

Activists have been increasingly critical of the lack of action taken by governments and large corporations in recent years.

Birol, meanwhile, said he had “legitimate optimism” that the world would move away from fossil fuels and toward...