Nobel 2020: Will Greta Thunberg win this year’s Peace Prize?

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - When the Nobel Peace Prize is announced on Friday, Greta Thunberg’s climate change strike will be in its 112th week.

Though there is no clear favourite for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, Ms Thunberg is among the frontrunners. Her Fridays for the Future protest has, in two short years, helped galvanise public opinion over climate change.

She has become the face and voice of the campaign agitating for change in the face of the looming climate crisis.

When he bequeathed his fortune to create the Nobel prizes, Alfred Nobel stipulated they should be awarded to those “who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind”.

Aged just 17, Ms Thunberg may fit the bill in a year where a global pandemic is being touted as just a foretaste of the chaos that will be wrought by climate change.

Nobel historian Asle Sveen told The National in an interview last week that there would be a temptation for the Nobel committee to select Ms Thunberg as the world grapples with the twin crises of climate change and Covid-19.

“[Climate Change] is a long term and much more dangerous problem than the pandemic,” Mr Sveen said. “But you can link them.

“No other person has been in the spotlight more or has got more attention [for climate change] than Greta Thunberg.”

The teenage activist began her protest in August 2018 when she was 15.

Holding her now iconic “school strike for climate” sign, she initially planned to demonstrate outside Swedish parliament for just three weeks in the run up to elections.

In a matter of days she was making headlines across the world. Her protest snowballed and she started her Fridays for the Future campaign, opting to strike one day per week.

At times she has led millions of students and adults in protest. The September 2019 climate protest she led, took place in 4,500 locations across the world. As many as 6 million people were reported to have taken part.

Other demonstrations, such as her socially distanced 111th Friday’s for the Future protest, saw Ms Thunberg don a face mask and urge her supporters to remain socially distant during their rallies.

Ms Thunberg has, in the last who years, addressed the US congress and the UK Parliament. she has spoken with heads of state and government and met with other world leaders. She was Time magazine’s 2019 person of the year.

At the 2019 UN climate change summit in New York, she hit out at the political elite in a now famous speech.

“You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words,” she said in the impassioned address.

“People are suffering, people are dying, entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are at the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of endless economic growth. How dare you.”

The World Health Organisation, and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern are also among the frontrunners for the Nobel prize. Notable winners in the past have included Martin Luther King Jr, Nelson Mandela and Mother Teresa.

The Nobel committee has been secretive about its selection of Laureates. The Norwegian Nobel Committee, which consists of five individuals appointed by the Norwegian Parliament. They are often retired politicians, but not always. The current committee is led by a lawyer and includes two academics.

They are all put forward by Norwegian political parties and their appointments reflect the balance of power in parliament.

Nominations closed on January 31. Members of the committee can make their own nominations, no later than at the first meeting of the committee in February.

They discuss all the nominations, then establish a shortlist. Each nominee is then assessed and examined by a group of permanent advisers and other experts.

The committee meets roughly once a month to discuss the nominations. They usually make their decision at the final committee meeting, which tends to be at the beginning of October.

Nominations are secret for 50 years, but those who nominate can choose to divulge their choices.

The only thing the Norwegian Nobel Committee will comment on is the number of candidates. This year, there are 318 contenders - 211 individuals and 107 organisations.