«Our house Is Still On Fire» – Greta Thunberg on Averting a Climate Apocalypse

“Our house is still on fire.” With this words Greta Thunberg startet her speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday, 21 February 2020, reprising her most famous line from an address last year at the forum. “Your inaction is fueling the flames by the hour.” Her remarks opened a panel discussion hosted by The New York Times and the World Economic Forum.

One of Greta Thunbergs conclusions is: «All the solutions are obviously not available within today’s societies. Nor do we have the time to wait for new technological solutions to become available to start drastically reducing our emissions. So, of course the transition isn’t going to be easy. It will be hard. And unless we start facing this now together, with all cards on the table, we won’t be able to solve this in time.»

Not only Greta Thunberg drew the attention of the audience to the current crisis situation. Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, President of the Association for Indigenous Women and Peoples of Chad (AFPAT), described how record-breaking global temperatures were wreaking havoc in her community: “When they say the forest is burning it’s not just the language of expression. It’s our real home that’s burning.” Then she added:  “Because indigenous people from all over the world – from Chad, Amazon, Indonesia – we’re depending on these forests. They’re our food, our medicine, our pharmacy, our education.” Indigenous people are already suffering the impact of climate change, she said. “In my region in Sahel it’s people who are dying, who are dying because of the climate change. When people talk about 2050, I’m like seriously, (until) 2050 there is no solution? We need it now. ”