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It was the kind of spotlight associated with another young climate activist: a hall full of world leaders and a speaking space before the United Nations secretary-general.
The woman in the spotlight wasn’t Greta Thunberg, but Txai Suruí, a 24-year-old Brazilian Indigenous climate activist who made her debut on the world stage. On the opening day of the global climate summit in Glasgow, he made an eloquent call for attention to the devastating deforestation of the Amazon.
“The world is talking,” said Ms. Suruí. “He tells us we don’t have any more time.”
“Animals are disappearing,” he added. “Rivers are dying and our plants are not blooming like they used to.”
Ms. Suruí told heads of state in the audience that they “close your eyes to the facts” and that their charts are insufficient to reduce carbon emissions and reduce fossil fuel use.
“It’s not 2030 or 2050,” he said. “Snow.”
Ms. Suruí’s speech at the summit came as the organizers faced criticism for a notable omission in the programme: Ms. Thunberg, who said she was not invited, but Joined large numbers of protesters outside the conference room on Monday.
Reminding world leaders of the murder of one of her childhood friends she said was trying to fight deforestation, Ms. Suruí said she had witnessed firsthand the damage of climate change.
“Indigenous peoples are at the forefront of the climate emergency,” he said. “We have to be at the center of the decisions made here.”
Ms. Suruí said her father, a chieftain, taught her that “we should listen to the stars, the moon, the wind, the animals, and the trees.”
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