Greta Thunberg To Skip UN Climate Conference Over Vaccine Inequality: ‘Vaccine Nationalism Won’t Solve The Pandemic’

Greta Thunberg, the teen climate activist, announced that she does not plan to attend the United Nations climate summit in Glasgow due to the fact that many people around the world still do not have access to COVID-19 vaccines.

Thunberg told BBC that she plans to skip the conference that is scheduled for this November. She is reportedly worried about the effect of the coronavirus pandemic on people attending the summit and believes that it should be moved to a later date. According to BBC, “She says the UK government, which is hosting the summit, should wait until global vaccination rates have risen.” The purpose of the summit is reportedly to bring together world leaders with the goal of finding a way to address climate change.

Thunberg said, “This needs to happen in the right way. Of course, the the best thing to do would be to get everyone vaccinated as soon as possible so that everyone could take part on the same terms.”

BBC reported, “COP stands for Conference of the Parties, and it is attended by countries that signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – a treaty agreed in 1994. The 2021 meeting will be the 26th meeting, so it has been named COP26.”

Thunberg attended the COP25 conference that was held in Madrid, Spain, in November 2019 before the pandemic and she was one of the headline speakers.

In anticipation of the upcoming event, a university in England used funds to create a statue of Thunberg, to which some students negatively responded, arguing that the money should have been used differently.

The Daily Wire reported:

The University and College Union Winchester branch stated that their disapproval of the statue is not in regards to it being one of Thunberg and have expressed their support for climate change activism. Instead, the issue they have is with the lack of openness in the process of decision-making, according to the union’s Twitter feed.

Winchester UCU president Megan Ball described Thunberg as a “fantastic role model to everyone, as someone who speaks loudly and proudly about important global issues” but said the student union could not get behind the sculpture.

She said, “We’re in a Covid year, lots of students haven’t really had access to campus, lots of them are trying to study online and are in dire need of support.”

“We are calling on the university to match the statue cost by committing £23,760 in additional funding to student support services across campus,” she added. “We urge them to publicly face the critical issues which students are highlighting and provide a transparent breakdown of additional and existing financial support.”

The last two summits had over 20,000 people show up and the United Kingdom is preparing for the possibility of 30,000 people attending the 2021 event. The UN conference has already been postponed once and some say that it might be delayed again.

In a thread of tweets, Thunberg explained her decision not to attend, saying that she would love to go to the conference, but “not unless everyone can take part on the same terms.”

Of course I would love to attend the Glasgow #COP26
But not unless everyone can take part on the same terms. Right now many countries are vaccinating healthy young people, often at the expense of risk groups and front line workers (mainly from global south, as usual…).
Thread-> https://t.co/pr1u7TeZxn

— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) April 9, 2021

Thunberg tweeted, “Inequality and climate injustice is already the heart of the climate crisis. If people can’t be vaccinated and travel to be represented equally that’s undemocratic and would worsen the problem.”

She added, “Vaccine nationalism won’t solve the pandemic. Global problems need global solutions.”

She also tweeted that a “digital solution” is “far from optimal,” making the point that internet and computer access is not equal in the world, either. “In that case we would lack representation from those whose voices need to be heard the most when it comes to the climate crisis,” she tweeted.

At the end of last month, BBC reported that UK government officials said that there are no efforts to delay the climate change summit despite rumors to the contrary. However, a final decision will be made soon.

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