[D66] A Nobel for Sweden's Greta Thunberg?

[A.OUT]

A Nobel for Sweden's Greta Thunberg? A tough decision for prize committee
By
MAGGIE FICK
reuters.com
5 min
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OSLO (Reuters) - Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg’s shaming of world
leaders and air travelers over climate change has won her millions of
admirers and attracted many new followers to her cause.

But it just might cost her the Nobel Peace Prize.

Thunberg, one of few people whose nomination has become known before the
awards ceremony, is the bookmakers’ favorite to win the prize next month.

At 16, she would be the youngest recipient of the $930,000 award won by
the likes of Nelson Mandela, Jimmy Carter and Mikhail Gorbachev. She
would be the first to win the prize for environmental work since former
U.S. vice president Al Gore shared it in 2007 for raising awareness of
climate change.

But Thunberg’s youth, outspokenness and confrontational approach - the
very factors that have made her the global face of climate change
activism - present challenging questions for the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

Her shaming of those who choose to travel by airplane - #flightshame –
raises hackles among some people. The denunciations of world leaders by
a teenager alienates others.

While liberals see her as courageous for telling the truth about climate
change, right-wing critics depict her as a liar or hypocrite, suggest
her parents have manipulated her or portray her as the ringleader of a
socialist conspiracy.

“It’s been a while (since Gore was awarded the prize in 2007) ... so
that would boost her chances,” Sverre Lodgaard, a deputy member of the
award committee from 2003 to 2011, told Reuters.

“The problem is that the principle of ‘flight shame’ brings her chances
... down. Shame is not a constructive feeling to bring about change.”

Thunberg, who does not usually take media requests directly, did not
immediately respond to requests for comment made through her father,
Svante Thunberg, and to an email account set up to handle media queries.

Greta Thunberg has hit back at her critics, denying she is paid for her
activism or is being “used” by anyone.

She wrote on Facebook in February that “there is no one ‘behind’ me
except for myself. My parents were as far from climate activists as
possible before I made them aware of the situation.”
“A VERY HAPPY YOUNG GIRL”

Thunberg rose to global prominence last year by taking time off school
to demonstrate outside Swedish parliament about the lack of action to
combat climate change. Inspired by her weekly protest, millions of young
people protested around the globe last Friday to put pressure on
governments to act.

This week, after sailing to New York in a zero-carbon emissions vessel,
she accused leaders at the U.N. climate summit of stealing her dreams
and childhood with empty words on climate change.

“How dare you?” she asked.

Her comments did not go down well with U.S. President Donald Trump, who
has questioned climate science and has challenged every major U.S.
regulation aimed at combating climate change.

Retweeting footage of her speech, he mocked Thunberg by saying: “She
seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and
wonderful future. So nice to see!”

Thunberg responded by changing her Twitter biography to: “A very happy
young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future.”

Trump also suggested he ought to receive the Nobel Peace Prize himself
“for a lot of things if they gave it out fairly, which they don’t.”

With Nobel Prize winners inevitably thrust into the spotlight, the
committee will consider Thunberg’s age and how a teenager would cope
with even more intense public scrutiny than she is already under,
Lodgaard said.

Five years ago, Pakistani education activist Malala Yousafzai won the
award at the age of 17, but her candidacy was less divisive than Thunberg’s.

“It is a tremendous burden to give a Nobel to a teenager,” said Asle
Sveen, author of several books about the prize.

Even so, he and Lodgaard say Thunberg still has a chance of winning.

The award committee could opt to reduce the weight of expectation on
Thunberg by sharing the prize between her and someone else, or simply
decide her behavior has shown she is mature beyond her years, they said.

“They would have seen and heard her and she would have come across as
thoughtful and effective. She could be a very good candidate,” Lodgaard
said.
THE DEFINITION OF PEACE

Also possibly counting against Thunberg is a debate in academic circles
about whether environmental activism counts towards peace, as defined in
Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel’s will, even though Gore shared his
award with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

“The argument ‘for’ is that the science shows we are experiencing a
dramatic change of climate and we could have extreme conditions, with
consequences in terms of war and refugees,” Sveen said.

“The argument ‘against’ would be: does a prize to the environment fall
outside the boundaries of Nobel’s will? This was an argument used when
Al Gore and the IPCC won in 2007.”

Apart from Thunberg, other leading possible contenders for the award
include Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed for the reconciliation he
forged in 2018 with Eritrea.

The neighbors fought a war that killed more than 70,000 people from 1998
to 2000 and failed to implement a 2000 peace deal. Also counting in
Abiy’s favor is his lifting of bans against opposition parties, said
Henrik Urdal, director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo.

Abiy, who took office in April 2018, is pushing Ethiopia towards new
democratic freedoms, though rights groups say more needs to be done to
heal wounds after years of government repression.
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Reporters Without Borders, or the Committee to Protect Journalists,
groups that campaign for freedom of the press, could also be recognised.

“There is very distinctly a case for this in the age of fake news,” said
Dan Smith, director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Pope Francis, the United Nations Refugee Agency and its head, Filippo
Grandi, are also mentioned among possible contenders for the price in
recognition of their work towards refugees and as a way to highlight the
right to asylum, under pressure in the United States, Europe and elsewhere.