Paris: French President Emmanuel Macron Tuesday criticised the actions of Swedish 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg undertaken at the UN. Thunberg, having delivered a speech at the UN General Assembly session in New York Monday, filed a complaint along with a group of young activists campaigning to protect the planet’s ecology with the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.
The complaint alleges that five countries (Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany and Turkey) are not doing enough to fight climate change and, therefore, violate the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
“I highly doubt that this is the most effective way to solve the problem,” the French president said in view of this.
“All mobilisation campaigns launched by youngsters and more senior people are undeniably useful [to fight climate change]. However, it is necessary that these campaigns focus on those [countries] that went too far, on those who are trying to block action to protect climate,” Macron said.
“I do not think that the current French and German governments are the ones to block actions [to protect the environment],” the French President underlined.
“I doubt that these actions [of Thunberg] are the most effective approach to resolve the issue, considering the fact that France is phasing out coal usage, shutting down facilities producing fossil fuels [on its territory] and taking other measures,” Macron said.
He also expressed an opinion that “the most radical positions [of ecologists] are only dividing society.”
