Greta Thunberg’s nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize split the world in two: between those who believed the young child climate activist who is encouraging children to skip school because this somehow contributes to ending climate change deserves the award, and between those who likened Thunberg’s nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize to that of Obama’s – a total joke.
In case you need a refresher, Greta Thunberg is the 16-year-old climate activist who lectured all us adults on climate change and how we’ve “destroyed her hopes, dreams, and childhood” at the UN a few weeks back.
However, despite the praise she got from the left and even many world leaders (except for President Trump!) for the theatrical speech, Thunberg was not awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Instead, the award went to Prime Minister of Ethiopia Abiy Ahmed Ali.
Greta Thunberg not being awarded the Nobel comes as a huge blow to the supporters of her movement, some of whom have chalked it up to the fact that the prize comes from Norway - a big oil exporter:
The New York Times said the following about why Ethiopia's PM was awarded the Nobel instead of Greta:
Abiy Ahmed, the prime minister of Ethiopia, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, for his work in restarting peace talks with neighboring Eritrea and beginning to restore freedoms in his country after decades of political and economic repression.
Mr. Abiy, 43, broke through two decades of frozen conflict between his vast country, Africa’s second most populous, and Eritrea, its small and isolated neighbor. When he became prime minister of Ethiopia in 2018, he threw himself at a breakneck pace into reforms at home, and peace negotiations with the rebel-turned-dictator Isaias Afwerki, president of Eritrea.
The two nations share deep ethnic and cultural ties, but until July last year they had been locked into a state of neither peace nor war, a conflict that had separated families, complicated geopolitics and cost the lives of more than 80,000 people during two years of border violence.
In its official announcement, the Nobel Committee detailed a litany of accomplishments for Mr. Abiy in his first 100 days as prime minister: lifting the country’s state of emergency, granting amnesty to thousands of political prisoners, discontinuing media censorship, legalizing outlawed opposition groups, dismissing military and civilian leaders suspected of corruption, and increasing the influence of women in political and community life.
“Abiy Ahmed has initiated important reforms that give many citizens hope for a better life and a brighter future,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said.
Quartz has more:
The 2019 Nobel peace prize has been awarded to Ethiopia’s prime minister Abiy Ahmed Ali for working to end almost two decades of conflict with neighboring Eritrea.
The chair of the Nobel prize committee said the award is “for his efforts to achieve peace and international cooperation, and in particular for his decisive initiative to resolve the border conflict with neighboring Eritrea.”
Ahmed was one of the favorites to win this year’s Peace Prize from a list—301 candidates—that included Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish climate change activist. Bookies put him in second place.
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