Greta Thunberg: Energy companies throwing people ‘under the bus’

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg on Thursday accused energy companies of throwing people “under the bus” by continuing to invest in fossil fuels.

“Without massive public pressure from the outside, at least in my experience, these people are going to go as far as they possibly can,” Thunberg said at a panel in Davos, Switzerland, on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum. 

“As long as they can get away with it, they will continue to invest in fossil fuels,” she continued. “They will continue to throw people under the bus for their own gain.”

Thunberg — who joined the panel alongside fellow activists Vanessa Nakate, Helena Gualinga and Luisa Neubauer and International Energy Agency Executive Director Fatih Birol — added that she does not believe change will come from within the halls of power.

“I believe that the changes we need right now needs to happen on the outside,” she said. “We need to build and create a critical mass of people who demand change, who demand justice.” 

The discussion comes just days after the 20-year-old activist was arrested in Luetzerath, Germany, while protesting the expansion of a coal mine. Thunberg was carried off by police after she refused to move away from the edge of the open-cast coal mine of Garzweiler 2.