Search icon

Climate Change

26th Nov 2022

Greta Thunberg sues Sweden over climate crisis

Steve Hopkins

‘Sweden has never treated the climate crisis like a crisis’

Greta Thunberg marched with hundreds of other activists through the Swedish capital where they filed a legal claim against the state for not doing enough to combat climate change.

More than 600 people under the age of 26 signed the 87-page document, which was filed in the Stockholm District Court on Friday and asks the court to rule that the country’s climate policies have violated its citizens’ human rights.

Anton Foley, spokesman of the youth-led initiative Aurora, which filed the claim, said: “Sweden has never treated the climate crisis like a crisis.

“Sweden is failing in its responsibility and breaking the law.’

Thunberg tweeted on Friday: ‘Today on Black Friday is the perfect day to sue the state over its insufficient climate policies.

“So that’s what we did. ‘See you in court!'”

Thunberg tweeted that Black Friday “is the perfect day to sue the state over its insufficient climate policies. So that’s what we did. ‘See you in court!’.”

A few hour later she added: “School strike week 223. ‘Today we are 636 young people in @auroramalet who are suing the Swedish state for insufficient climate action.

“Therefore we now marched from the parliament to the court.”

Another activist, Ida Edling, said Sweden “is pursuing a climate policy the research is very clear will contribute to a climate disaster in the future”.

In 2017, Sweden’s parliament decided that by 2045 the nation will have zero net emissions of greenhouse gases entering into the atmosphere and 100% renewable energy.

Swedish broadcaster TV4 said the government declined to comment on ongoing legal action.

https://www.instagram.com/p/ClGEoLLj4Eu/

 

Thunberg’s recently lashed out at the West’s so-called obsession with capitalism.

During a sit-down chat in London to promote her new book, The Climate Book, the 19-year-old said the Western world is in need of a “system-wide transformation”.

“We are never going back to normal again because ‘normal’ was already a crisis,” she said.

“What we refer to as normal is an extreme system built on the exploitation of people and the planet.

“It is a system defined by colonialism, imperialism, oppression and genocide by the so-called global North to accumulate wealth that still shapes our current world order.”

“We are still here, and we are not planning on going anywhere,” she added.

“Young people all over the world are stepping up, showing that our leaders messed with the wrong generation.”

Related links: