Blah, blah blah! When Johnson quoted Thunberg at COP26

BRITISH prime minister Boris Johnson on Monday (1) opened the COP26 World Leaders’ Summit (WLS) in Glasgow, Scotland, saying it won’t solve climate change but can be the beginning of the end, Glasgow Times reported.

Johnson welcomed several world leaders to the city on the first full day of the summit. Heads of as many as 120 nations are arriving in the Scottish city for talks, including Indian prime minister Narendra Modi and US president Joe Biden.

Besides, nearly 25,000 delegates are attending the two-week event which many have described as the last chance for Planet Earth to turn it around against climate change. Thousands of activists are also travelling to Glasgow for fringe events and taking part in protests around the event, BBC reported.

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The event has been delayed by a year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Swedish teen green activist Greta Thunberg at Glasgow Central station on October 30, 2021, ahead of COP26. (Photo by Ian Forsyth/Getty Images)

In his address, Johnson said Glasgow was the birthplace of the steam engine which he called the doomsday machine. According to the British prime minister, the engine was central to the industrial revolution and a new revolution was the requirement of the day.

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Johnson said it was high time that we stop using cars with internal combustion engines, plant more trees and close coal-fired power stations, the Glasgow Times report added.

We are back where the doomsday machine was invented: Johnson

“It was 250 years ago in Glasgow that James Watt came up with the machine powered by steam produced by burning coal. 250 years later we’ve brought you back to the place the doomsday machine was invented,” the prime minister said.

Johnson also said that all the promises made towards limiting global warming to 1.5-degree Celsius will be nothing but “blah, blah, blah unless we get real”.

The wordings made relevant a comparison between Johnson and Swedish teen activist Greta Thunberg who, just over a month ago, mocked world leaders, including Johnson, over their promises to address the climate change crisis, dismissing them as “blah, blah, blah”.

“Build back better. Blah, blah, blah. Green economy. Blah blah blah. Net zero by 2050. Blah, blah, blah. This is all we hear from our so-called leaders. Words that sound great but so far have not led to action. Our hopes and ambitions drown in their empty promises," Thunberg said in a speech to the Youth4Climate summit in Milan, Italy, in late September, The Guardian reported.

The British prime minister said the summit will not solve climate change, pointing out there would not have been 25 previous COP meets.

“We are covering the earth in a suffocating blanket of C02. The longer we fail to act the worse it gets. Humanity has long since run down the clock on climate change. It’s one minute to midnight. If we don’t act today it will be too late for our children,” he said.

The venue saw the presence of Prince Charles, in place of the Queen; German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Emmanuel Macron.