Stockholm: Climate activist Greta Thunberg has called on Australia to "wake up and treat the climate emergency like an emergency".
Speaking from her home in Sweden to a channel, Ms Thunberg issued a warning to Australians relying on politicians to deliver the actions required to save the planet.
"It seems like many people in Australia think that now we have a new government, everything we'll be fine," she said ahead of the annual UN Climate Change Conference, opening in Egypt on November 6. "Of course, that is very, very far from truth."
Ms Thunberg routinely distances herself from any political affiliation, and argued that all sides of politics had failed to honestly confront the climate emergency.
"I have never supported any party,"
"People sometimes assume that I'm supporting Green parties and so on, which is of course not true. All the current ideologies and party politics have failed to create the necessary changes."
COP27 'a scam', says Thunberg
More than 35,000 delegates will attend the meeting at Sharm el Sheikh, along with more than 100 world leaders, including US President Joe Biden.
Energy Minister Chris Bowen will lead the Australian delegation.
However, Ms Thunberg was sceptical about the potential outcomes from the UN climate talks.
She told world leaders use words "to make it seem like they're doing something when they're not."
At last year's summit in Glasgow, almost 200 nations agreed to "revisit and strengthen" their emissions targets by the end of this year.
By September, only 24 nations had filed plans with the UN describing how they would reach their new targets. Side agreements at the last conference included non-binding commitments to reduce methane emissions and deforestation.
According to Ms Thunberg, climate summits "serve as an opportunity for big polluters to greenwash themselves … using PR tactics and communication strategies disguised as politics".
"The way that COP27 would, for me, be considered a success or a step forward would be that more people realise what a scam it actually is."
she was neither a pessimist nor optimist when it came to the climate crisis said, 19 years old, Ms Thunberg