This year’s Nobel Peace Prize should’ve gone to Greta Thunberg – what’s more important than climate action?
There were many worthy candidates for this year’s prize, including the winners, but unless we prize climate truth, climate justice and climate action sufficiently, everything else, including all other worthy causes, will be swept away
Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov, brave campaigning journalists, have won this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. Many congratulations to them. They are worthy winners of the prize. However, I can’t help thinking that the Nobel committee has missed a trick and lost an historic opportunity.
Possibly the most important conference the world will ever have seen is about to begin on 1 November in Glasgow. Cop26 will decide whether or not the world’s “leaders” are serious about trying to prevent eco-driven civilisational collapse. The Nobel Prize could have been given this year to some of those who have been working most brilliantly to stabilise our climate.
The most obvious such candidate, who was nominated, is Greta Thunberg. Let’s listen to her for a minute: “We kids most often don’t do what you tell us to do. We do as you do. And since you grown-ups don’t give a damn about my future, I won’t either. My name is Greta and I’m in ninth grade. And I am school striking for the climate until election day.”
The date was 20 August 2018 and with this tweet, 15-year-old Greta launched what would grow into a worldwide movement, catapulting her centre stage in the fight to save people and planet. Election day came and went and still, three years on, she continues her strike. Only now, she is very much no longer alone.
Thanks to “the Greta effect”, she hasn’t just woken up fellow young people to the plight of the planet. She has also used her growing platform to challenge politicians with her straight talking, no-nonsense speeches.
It’s a real shame that those deciding on the Nobel Peace Prize have missed the chance to make a massive pitch for real climate action, at this vital moment. There were many worthy candidates for this year’s prize, including the winners, but unless we prize climate truth, climate justice and climate action sufficiently, everything else, including all other worthy causes, will be swept away. This includes the very futures of our children.
Professor Rupert Read teaches at the University of East Anglia. He is a former spokesperson and strategist for Extinction Rebellion. His book Parents for a Future – How Loving Our Children Can Prevent Climate Collapse, was partly inspired by Greta Thunberg