In a surprising turn of events, Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg expressed her viewpoints on Germany's plan to scrap nuclear power, triggering a wave of mixed reactions - but mostly highlighting the glaring hypocrisy in all of it.
Thunberg on Tuesday told German public television that Germany would be making a mistake by turning off its existing nuclear power plants to generate electricity. Her renewed stand on nuclear power won Greta some unusual allies on the German right, including Christian Democrat (CDU) leader Friedrich Merz and Germany's finance minister and the liberal leader in the coalition Christian Lindner.
"I personally think it's a bad idea," she told a German talk show. "If they are already running, I think it would be a mistake to shut them down in favor of coal."
Choosing the lesser evil in matters of climate change doesn't yield intended results, especially when "climate icon" such as Greta switches sides like a record changer and give much-needed ammunition to climate change sceptics.
"I welcome the support of Fridays for Future founder Greta Thunberg for the FDP position to keep our nuclear plants on the grid. In this energy war everything that generates electricity must be on the grid. The reasons speak for themselves — economically and physically," Lindner wrote on Twitter.
Greta's current stand surely struck the wrong nerve for many, who were quick to point out the hypocrisy.
From #NotMyTaxonomy to pro-nuclear
Not long ago, Greta slammed the European Parliament for rejecting the motion to oppose the inclusion of nuclear power and fossil gas as environmentally sustainable economic activities under certain conditions. This was in July and Greta shared her two cents on the matter.
"The European Parliament just voted to label fossil gas as 'green' energy. This will delay a desperately needed real sustainable transition and deepen our dependency on Russian fuels," Swedish "climate icon" had tweeted.
"The hypocrisy is striking, but unfortunately not surprising," Greta had said of the EU lawmakers backing green label for nuclear and gas just three months ago.
Netizens were quick to point out the two-facedness. Twitter was stormed with tweets reminding Greta of her own tweet from July 5, 2022.
