LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Teenage activist Greta Thunberg warned that the world is still wasting time when it comes to fighting climate change and attacked "ignorance and unawareness".
In an article for the Guardian, she said that it had been two years since her first school strike to raise awareness for the climate and despite inspiring a global movement she claims that the world is still living in a state of denial.

"Just the thought of being in a crisis that we cannot buy, build or invest our way out of seems to create some kind of collective mental short-circuit. This mix of ignorance, denial and unawareness is the very heart of the problem," her and her activist colleagues said.

"Looking back [over two years], a lot has happened. Many millions have taken to the streets [...] and on 28 November 2019, the European parliament declared a climate and environmental emergency.

"But over these last two years, the world has also emitted over 80bn tonnes of CO2. We have seen continuous natural disasters taking place across the globe. Many lives and livelihoods have been lost, and this is only the very beginning."

She claimed that "the gap between what we need to do and what's actually being done is widening by the minute."

Thunberg also argued that countries had lost another two crucial years due to political inaction.

On Thursday, she and other leading school strikers will meet Angela Merkel, the chancellor of Germany, to demand a halt to all fossil fuel investments and subsidies and the establishment of annual, binding carbon budgets.

Scientists calculate that global carbon emissions must be cut by half by the end of this decade in order to keep temperature rises to below 1.5C.

"We understand the world is complicated and that what we are asking for may not be easy or seem unrealistic," said the school strikers. "But it is much more unrealistic to believe that our societies would be able to survive the global heating we're heading for. We are inevitably going to have to fundamentally change, one way or another. The question is: will the changes be on our terms, or on nature's terms?"

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