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Surrounded by scientists, before an overflowing capacity, Greta Thunberg raised the temperature of COP25 with one of his occasional appeals that so much irritate his detractors: "Not only do you have to educate in schools, you have to educate adults about the weather. You have to translate the numbers of science so that people understand the sense of urgency . "

Under the slogan "United after science" , the Swedish activist set the agenda of the day during an early morning session, surrounded by scientists from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) who reminded politicians of the need to set a maximum rise of temperatures of 1.5 degrees and act accordingly.

"We desperately need more information about the weather in the media," Greta Thunberg said. "We have to make science more accessible, because people are not fully aware of what is happening."

"Everywhere we see that it is time to act, but the truth is that politicians still do not capture that sense of urgency," said William Moomaw , a chemist at Tufts University and one of the drivers of the letter recently signed by 11,000 scientists from 173 countries alert on the situation of "climatic emergency".

"We are not only altering the climate, but we are destroying biodiversity and the systems that support our own life," added Moomaw, who stressed the need to reduce emissions annually by 7.6% over the next decade and refuted The myth of "carbon neutrality" in 2050: "We can not continue emitting and" compensating "as nothing, what you have to do is stop emitting . "

"Our small daily acts matter, but what is needed is to change the food system, the transport system, the industrial production system," Sivan Kartha , of the Stockholm Environment Institute, said. "That systemic change can only come if there is political action, such as ending the fossil fuel subsidies at once."

Kartha admitted that it is complex to explain to people the impact of the global rise in temperatures, and still made an effort to illustrate: " If we do nothing, temperatures can rise five degrees . The last time it happened was at the end of the last Ice Age that allowed life as we know it today. Another similar rise in temperatures can trigger forces that jeopardize our own existence. "

"We already see what is happening with an increase of one degree over temperatures in the pre-industrial era," said Rachel Cleetus of the Union of Concerned Scientists. "In this century there have been the warmest 19 years ever recorded and episodes of extreme weather, fires, floods, typhoons and hurricanes have skyrocketed in 2019."

"Every little increase in temperature counts, every year counts, every election we make," said Youba Sokona , vice president of the IPCC. "Our reports on the impact of the climate crisis on land and in the oceans are there, as is the report on the need to limit the rise in temperatures to 1.5 degrees. What we have ahead is a transition without precedents and we cannot wait . "

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