Teen climate activist Greta Thunberg and US President Donald Trump nearly crossed paths at the United Nations today, resulting in some intriguing footage of the 16-year-old campaigner.
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Reuters footage of the near-encounter shows Thunberg, who is in New York City to attend the United Nations Climate Action Summit, staring at the US leader as he made his way to a meeting of the UN General Assembly.
While it’s a stretch to draw inferences from the seconds-long clip, and we’re not to keen on ‘body language experts’ divining meaning from wordless footage, the clip bristles with the tension of diametrically opposed world views.
Captured by @Reuters Andrew Hofstetter: @GretaThunberg watches Trump arrive at the #UNGA. Thunberg condemned world leaders for failing to take strong measures to combat climate change: ‘You have stolen my dreams’ https://t.co/e9VfOa2kwW pic.twitter.com/kbJqF4rvxc
— Reuters (@Reuters) September 23, 2019
A brief video clip appearing to show US President Donald Trump ignoring Greta Thunberg at the UN building has gone viral. pic.twitter.com/bAxMrDV6zu
— SBS News (@SBSNews) September 24, 2019
Thunberg, who today chastised the international community for its collective inaction on climate change, has previously stated a meeting with Trump is not on her to-do list.
“I don’t want to meet with people who don’t accept the science,” Thunberg told NPR after a protest at the White House earlier this month.
“I haven’t been invited to do that yet. And honestly I don’t want to do that,” she added.
While Trump did spend a cool ten-ish minutes at a Climate Action Summit meeting, his track record on environmental protections is piss poor.
His administration has overseen the winding back of methane emissions in the oil and gas industries, and has pushed for restrictions on logging in national forests to be lifted.
He also once said climate change was a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese government.
To cap the day off, Trump told reporters at the General Assembly he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize – an award which Thunberg herself has been nominated to win.
