A new edition of the One Planet Summit devoted to biodiversity took place on Monday, January 11. Young climate activist Greta Thunberg reacted on her Twitter account by summing it up as “blah blah blah”. Emmanuel Macron decided to answer.
Leaders and economic players gathered on January 11 for a third edition of the One Planet Summit, launched at the initiative of France and devoted this year to biodiversity. However, the conference took place without much progress: without detailing the promises or putting much more money on the table, according to AFP.
On Twitter, Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg summed up the summit in a critical 10-point tweet that begins with the phrase “blah blah blah”.
“In 2010, our leaders signed “ambitious goals to protect wildlife and ecosystems”. By 2021, they’d failed on every single one. Each day, they choose not to act. Instead, they sign more “ambitious” non-binding future goals while passing policy, locking in destructive business as usual,” the activist wrote on his Twitter account.
Macron response
The President of the Republic chose the end of the meeting to respond to the young environmental activist.
“Things don’t change overnight. They presuppose concrete actions on the ground,” he stressed, in response to “people who will tell us it’s blah-blah,” “who love lament and who will continue to say ‘we’re all going to die,’” said Emmanuel Macron, probably addressing Greta Thunberg, according to the HuffPost.
For the French leader, change is possible “if we have the right ability to mobilize if we are precise and concrete with dates and figures”. This is why he considers the One Planet Summit “extremely useful” as there are “appointments, responsibilities, and transparency on the results”.
