Thunberg Warns 'Everything We Love Is at Stake' as She Arrives at COP31 in Antalya

Greta Thunberg walked into the UN climate talks in the Turkish resort city of Antalya on Tuesday and, on arrival, called the whole annual exercise hypocritical. She urged world leaders to put people and the planet ahead of profits and power.

The COP31 conference opens after a year of deadly climate-related disasters, including heat waves and floods, and after another energy shock set off by the Iran war. The source gives no casualty figures for those disasters.

Thunberg's criticism was aimed first at the hosts. Every year, she said, host countries get a chance to whitewash themselves, and the negotiations are filled with lobbyists paid by the destructive industries that profit from what she called an extremely violent status quo. She described political and economic systems that have become incompatible with human nature. Climate change, she said, is threatening everything, and everything and everyone we love is at stake. She argued that action should protect and benefit people, not keep sacrificing the global majority and the planet so that a fortunate few can go on making unimaginable profits and holding geopolitical power.

The criticism has a concrete backdrop in this year's hosting arrangement. Turkey and Australia are co-hosting and both promote renewable energy and rooftop solar, yet both still depend heavily on fossil fuels, especially coal, for their electricity. Recent hosts have included Brazil, the United Arab Emirates and Azerbaijan, all major oil producers. A central Turkish goal is global electrification, moving transportation, buildings and heavy industry from fossil fuels to electricity. Turkey wants electricity, ideally from solar and wind, to make up 35 percent of global energy consumption by 2035, up from 23 percent today.

This is Thunberg's first climate summit since Glasgow in 2021, where she dismissed leaders' promises as "blah, blah, blah." She became prominent in 2018 at age 15, when she began a solitary school strike for the climate outside the Swedish Parliament. In 2022 she published The Climate Book, which sets out actions to address the crisis. She has won multiple awards and taken up other causes, including the Free Palestine movement. Last year she was arrested in London while supporting hunger-striking pro-Palestinian activists, and more recently she backed French students protesting for more school resources. In 2024 she joined a protest in Georgia against Azerbaijan hosting COP29.

Despite her sharp words, she said the victories on offer must be taken. The situation is so desperate, she said, that every positive sign should be seized to save as much as can still be saved. She is expected to stay several days.

Her arrival drew enthusiasm from young activists. Amber Turner, 26, a fellow with the Alliance of Small Island States, said she hoped Thunberg's presence would remind people why the work began: to push for meaningful change and hold decision-makers accountable. Worsening climate impacts, Turner added, make it hard for young people to be sure of a safe future. Kamori Osthananda, a youth negotiator on Thailand's delegation, called her presence symbolic and hoped it would pressure the COP to deliver real action and implementation. Qiyun Woo, a youth environmentalist from Singapore, said it adds to the calls of a generation inheriting the consequences of these negotiations, and noted that many other young activists are on the ground fighting for their communities.

Protests at the conference demanded more climate finance and criticized growing interest in nuclear energy. The talks run until Nov. 20, and COP32 is scheduled for Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in November 2027.