Many Greta Thunberg fans hope she won the Nobel Peace Prize, but her activities may not match the criteria of the award.

Swedish climatologist Greta Thunberg launched the "Friday for the future" or "Climate lock yards" movement last year, encouraging students around the world to drop out to ask the government to act. Climate change action.

Last month, she became the focus of public opinion when speaking to UN leaders: "You stole my dreams and my childhood with simple words."

Her efforts to fight for the environment earned her a Nobel Peace Prize nomination in March 2018, but this prestigious award was finally presented to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed on October 11 for her contributions to peace. with neighboring Eritrea.

The process of selecting a Nobel Peace Prize winner is very secretive. The only thing the Nobel Committee revealed was that this year there were 301 nominations. The names of some candidates are published by the people who nominated them. For example, Thunberg was nominated by three Norwegian MPs, but the full list will not be published for 50 years.

Henrik Urdal, head of the Oslo Peace Research Institute, said that it was difficult from the beginning to win the award because scientists had no consensus that climate change or resource scarcity was linked. relations with armed conflict, while conflict resolution is an important factor in selecting candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Janne Haaland Matlary, a professor of politics at the University of Oslo, also agrees that the link between climate change and conflict is currently unclear. "Everyone sees floods that can cause conflict and migration, but it has not been widely recognized as a security policy issue," Matlary said.

The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to environmental activists. In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and former US Vice President Al Gore were honored for "efforts in building and disseminating knowledge about artificial climate change, putting foundations for necessary measures to combat such changes ".

In 2004, the award was given to Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai for "her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace". In 1970, the award went to Norman Borlaug, the father of the green revolution (using technology transfer initiatives of the 1950s and 1960s to increase agricultural production), considered to have saved more than a billion people. world from famine.

But Urdal says such options are less likely now, because the award committee now wants to address Alfred Nobel's original wishes. In 1895, drafting the prize, Nobel wrote that the recipient should be the one who promoted the "abolition or reduction of the standing army". Some people interpret that this is directly related to peace and conflict.

"If you interpret it in a way that is too broad, the original goal becomes meaningless," Urdal said.

Therefore, Asle Sveen, a historian who has written many books on the Nobel Peace Prize, said Prime Minister Ahmed was the ideal type of candidate Alfred Nobel directed when founding the award. He put an end to the 20-year military standoff after the 1998-2000 border war between Eritrea and Ethiopia with a peace agreement signed in July 2018. This conflict is described as "Africa's most senseless war", causing the two poorest nations of the continent to spend billions of dollars on weapons purchases.

Meanwhile, Robert Falkner, a climate expert at the London School of Economics, argued that the idea of a Nobel Peace Prize should only be given to those involved in military conflict or confrontation between nations. it's "very old and narrow".

He added that it is difficult to demonstrate a direct causal relationship between climate change and conflict, partly because the same crisis can trigger different responses in different countries. However, ecological tensions in conflict areas will exacerbate the crisis. That's why the Pentagon, the Department of Defense, and NATO are working on this. The Pentagon calls climate change a "threat".

Timing is also not a favorable factor for Thunberg. The Nobel Committee has prepared a short list of the most deserving candidates shortly after the deadline for nominations at the end of January. But Thunberg's most impressive moments like protests, a transatlantic voyage on a sailboat and a speech in the US all took place at the end of the year.

Thunberg, who was in Denver during a visit to North America, said that she did not go to protest to receive the award. The activist posted on Twitter on October 11 that she still does what she usually does every Friday: protest against climate change.

Of course, just 16 years old, Thunberg still has many opportunities to win the Nobel Peace Prize.