Teen climate activist Greta Thunberg will not be this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner.
That honor was instead awarded Friday to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, Insider reported.
The Nobel Committee said it selected Ahmed for his “efforts to achieve peace and international cooperation and for his decisive initiative to resolve the border conflict with neighbouring Eritrea.”
The committee also praised Ahmed for helping to broker a peace deal between Ethiopia and Eritrea.
Thunberg was an odds-on favorite to take the prestigious prize.
Some of her supporters expressed disappointment and outrage on Friday.
How @GretaThunberg did not win the #NobelPeacePrize is beyond me.
She has inspired a generation & proven that you’re never too young to make a difference. #ClimateChange is affecting the planet & the world’s leaders need to realise that our actions speak louder than words. ?
— Jake Harrison (@thejakeharrison) October 11, 2019
Meanwhile, Newsweek declared Thunberg had been “snubbed.”
Greta Thunberg snubbed for Nobel Peace Prize by committee run by Norway, one of the world’s biggest oil and natural gas exporters https://t.co/DUl8FFVtul
— Newsweek (@Newsweek) October 11, 2019
Some experts, however, didn’t find the Nobel Committee’s decision all that surprising.
Henrik Urdal, head of the Peace Research Institute Oslo, explained why he left Thunberg off a Nobel Peace Prize shortlist he gave the committee.
Urdal told The Washington Post there “isn’t scientific consensus that there is a linear relationship between climate change — or resource scarcity, more broadly — and armed conflict.”
Previously, Nobel insiders had floated the possibility that Thunberg’s approach to activism might cost her.
“It’s been a while [since Gore was awarded the prize in 2007] … so that would boost her chances,” Sverre Lodgaard, a deputy member of the award committee from 2003 to 2011, told Reuters last month.
“The problem is that the principle of ‘flight shame’ brings her chances … down. Shame is not a constructive feeling to bring about change.”
