Greta Thunberg has co-authored an open letter with other climate activists and school strikers Luisa Neubauer, Anuna de Wever van der Heyden, and Adélaïde Charlier, sent to all EU leaders and heads of state July 16.
“You must stop pretending that we can solve the climate- and ecological crisis without treating it as a crisis,” the letter reads, drawing a comparison between what leaders have done to address climate change (“pretty much nothing”) and the global coronavirus response.
Thunberg suspected that she’d contracted the virus back in March, and has since urged people to take the pandemic more seriously.
The open letter also lays out several demands, including demands to maintain an intersectional approach to fighting the climate crisis: “Design climate policies that protect workers and the most vulnerable and reduce all forms of inequality: economic, racial and gender.”
Signatures supporting the open letter have come from hundreds of scientists, thousands of activists and citizens, and figures such as Billie Eilish, Leonardo DiCaprio, Margaret Atwood, Joaquin Phoenix, Björk, The 1975, and Dazed 100ers Beabadoobee and Rina Sawayama.
You can also add your own signature to the open letter, which is also available to read in full, here.
“The clock is ticking,” the letter’s authors add, in their address to world leaders. “Doing your best is no longer good enough. You must now do the seemingly impossible.”