UN negotiations on the world climate treaty: Thunberg cancels participation in summit in Glasgow

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18-year-old Greta Thunberg does not want to travel to Scotland in November

Photo: Giorgio Perottino / Getty Images

It is still unclear whether the UN climate summit will really take place in November this year as planned.

The British government plans to make a decision on this in the next few weeks.

A prominent guest has already rejected the meeting: The Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg wants to stay away from the UN climate conference in November because of the unjust distribution of corona vaccines between poor and rich countries.

"In view of the extremely uneven distribution of the vaccine, I will not take part in the COP26 conference if the development continues as before," Thunberg said in an interview in Stockholm.

The disadvantage of poorer countries in the vaccine supply means that the countries cannot participate in the climate summit in Glasgow on equal terms.

The 18-year-old confirmed her request to postpone the conference, which was first reported by the BBC.

"Of course I would like to take part in COP26, but only if everyone can participate under the same conditions," said Thunberg.

The fact that young, healthy people in rich countries are likely to receive vaccinations in November is "very often at the expense of people in risk groups in other parts of the world."

Vaccination fairness: 99.9 percent for rich countries

More than 700 million vaccine doses have been administered worldwide.

The people in the poorer countries only received 0.1 percent of this.

Around twelve million people in Germany have already received a vaccination.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called the unequal distribution "not only a moral scandal", but warned that it was "also economically and epidemiologically self-destructive".

The UN climate conference COP26 had been postponed for a year due to the corona pandemic.

It is scheduled to take place in Glasgow in November.

If anything has changed in the distribution of vaccines by then, she will reconsider her decision to participate, Thunberg announced.

Conference break in the hot phase of negotiations

The UN climate conference, which usually takes place annually, has already been postponed by one year from 2020 to November 2021.

The summit is a mega event: Up to 30,000 people from all parts of the world come together for at least twelve days.

Around 200 countries are represented at the conference.

In addition to diplomats and ministers, there are usually many heads of state and government.

In November, the signatory states to the 2015 Paris Agreement intend to present their new climate protection commitments.

In the climate protection agreement, the signatories agreed to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees compared to the pre-industrial age.

In addition, the final topics of the world climate treaty are to be negotiated, including the global carbon markets.

However, the goals are not binding, implementation is left to each country.

Carbon emissions continue to grow every year, also as global energy demand continues to rise.

On August 20, 2018, Thunberg stood alone in front of the Swedish parliament for the first time to strike for more climate protection.

Since then, the young woman with the sign "School strike for the climate" has initiated a movement of young people around the world for more climate protection.

In recent years, the Swede has managed to get millions of people around the world excited about climate protection.

sug / AFP