Addressing an event in parliament, the 16-year-old campaigner said the government’s active support for the new exploitation of fossil fuels was “beyond absurd”…
The UK’s active current support of new exploitation of fossil fuels, like for example the UK shale gas fracking industry, the expansion of its North Sea oil and gasfields, the expansion of airports, as well as the planning permission for a brand new coal mine, is beyond absurd,” Ms Thunberg told MPs.
She was referring to West Cumbria Minining’s recent approval for a metallurgical coal mine (used for coking in making steel) in Whitehaven Cumbria.
However it is the burning of coal not energy output which creates emissions. This would create 9 million tonnes of CO2 emissions a year.
The only argument was whether this would be a reduction from the scenario of importing the same coal. However this is the same bad argument used in favour of fracking comparing one extinction scenario with another and no a potentially zero carbon solution such as replacing hydrogen for coal or using electric arc process both of which are potentially zero carbon.
Decisions, Decisions, Decisions 
“However this is the same bad argument used in favour of fracking comparing one extinction scenario with another and no a potentially zero carbon solution such as replacing hydrogen for coal or using electric arc process both of which are potentially zero carbon.”
No, what Greta Thurnberg misses, is the purpose of energy production: to do things and produce things that create value and give pleasure to the human race. Humankind needs to expend energy to manufacture things and think things and enjoy life. Environmentalists tend to focus only on one side of the balance sheet: energy expenditure (how much you consume) but not the benefits of doing so (what are the benefits). The challenge is to find a way of doing so that gradually limits C02 emissions, but not to targets that will plunge ourselves into a new Dark Ages. I fear that Saint Greta is like one of those self-flagellating millinarians out of Bergman’s Seventh Seal. The middle classes are in raptures over her, but no one else is (at least down at my pub).