A 16 year-old athlete has dropped out of the World Championships saying that she cannot justify flying in a climate crisis.
According to the BBC:
At 16 years old, athlete Innes FitzGerald is refusing to stick to the track.
The promising long-distance runner has turned down the chance to compete in the World Cross Country Championships.
Her reasoning? The contest is in Australia, thousands of miles from her home in Devon. Innes says she cannot justify flying in a climate crisis.
“I had to make a move. I had to do something just to make sure people were aware of the problem,” she says.
“I just thought I needed to do something,” Innes tells BBC Newsbeat.
“So when I had the opportunity to go to Australia, I was like, well, this is when I should say something.”
She wrote a letter to British Athletics, first published in Athletics Weekly, where she wrote that travelling fills her “with deep concern”.
“I would never be comfortable flying in the knowledge that people could be losing their livelihoods, homes and loved ones as a result,” her letter says.
“The least I can do is voice my solidarity with those suffering on the front line of climate breakdown.
“Coming to a decision has not been easy, however, little compares to the grief I would feel taking the flight.”
The response from British Athletics has been muted – the organisation declined to comment when approached by BBC Newsbeat and Innes says she only got a short response herself.
However, others have praised Innes for showing climate leadership. Now the teenager hopes other athletes will follow her example.
“I hope that more athletes will begin to question their choices,” says Innes.
“Obviously, I don’t expect everybody to behave in the way that I am but I think just doing little bits that they feel that they maybe can do.
“And more high-profile athletes, having such a big media platform, they should use that and talk about the issues.”
