Mum of climate activist furious after teen daughter mocked in radio interview

A 16-year-old climate activist has been mocked on live radio for an “ironic” admission — sparking a furious response from her mother.

Climate change activist Izzy Cook. Picture: 1News

A 16-year-old climate activist has been mocked on live radio for admitting she recently flew to Fiji — seconds after telling the interviewer she shouldn’t fly to Fiji.

New Zealand teen Izzy Cook from School Strike 4 Climate was speaking to NewstalkZB host Heather du Plessis-Allan on Friday when she made the comment, sparking raucous laughter from the host.

“So we would have to apply to have like, approved events to be able to fly for?” du Plessis-Allan asked.

“Well that’s one thing that you could look at doing,” Cook said.

“Am I allowed to go to Fiji? Is that necessary?” du Plessis-Allan asked.

Cook replied, “In the current climate crisis I don’t think that that’s necessary.”

The host then asked when was the last time Cook was on a plane.

“Mm, I’m not sure – maybe a few months ago to be honest,” she said.

“Where’d you go?” the host asked.

“Fiji,” Cook conceded.

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Climate change activist Izzy Cook. Picture: 1News

du Plessis-Allan then erupted in laughter.

“Izzy! Izzy! Don’t you care about the climate, Izzy?” she said.

Cook conceded it was “pretty ironic but to be honest it’s not really a trip that I wanted to go on but I can’t really get out of it because my parents wanted to go”.

“Are you embarrassed that your parents did that to the planet and then forced you to do it as well?” du Plessis-Allan asked.

“Of course I’m not embarrassed,” she said.

“Did you have a terrible time?” the host asked.

“Not really,” the teen said, sparking more laughter.

du Plessis-Allan ended the interview telling Cook she was “such a champion” who had a “brilliant future ahead of you”, mockingly asking, “Are you doing another strike soon?”

“Yeah well we’ll look to,” Cook said.

“Good, we’ll talk to you again,” the host laughed. “We might get you back on the show.”

Climate change activist Izzy Cook tells everyone not to travel to places like Fiji by plane to save the planet and then is asked where she flew last… she flew to Fiji.

Interviewer can’t stop laughing at her 🤣🤣 pic.twitter.com/cTZqvVgkFI

— ☢️🇺🇸 KC 3.0 🇺🇸☢️ (@KCPayTreeIt) September 27, 2022

After a clip of the interview went viral online, Cook’s mother penned a furious opinion piece saying the host should be “ashamed” for “bullying” her daughter.

“On Friday evening, I listened in horror as my 16-year-old daughter had a phone conversation with someone who appeared to be bullying her, laughing at her, and talking over her,” Rose Cook wrote in The Spinoff.

“As soon as she got off the call I demanded to know who the hell was speaking to my child in this way.”

Ms Cook said her daughter, who is the spokesperson for School Strike 4 Climate in Wellington, had some experience dealing with the media but “she wasn’t prepared for Heather du Plessis-Allan”.

“Commentators like du Plessis-Allan don’t give a s**t about climate change,” she wrote.

“They don’t care that Arctic ice is melting at four times the expected rate, or that we are seeing more and more extreme weather events killing and displacing people across the globe. No, as du Plessis-Allan is fond of reminding us, it’s the economy that matters, not our planet. These sorts of commentators use ad hominem arguments and ‘gotcha’ moments for pointscoring and discrediting their opponents.”

LA youth take part in a Global Climate Strike on September 23. Picture: Frederic J. Brown/AFP

Addressing the Fiji trip, Ms Cook said the “irony here is that Izzy didn’t even want to come”.

“She wanted to stay home and study and hang out with her friends. She’s a teenager! But, selfishly, I insisted, because I wanted to spend this time with her,” she said.

The mum insisted “none of this counts for anything”.

“Yes, Izzy took two flights in three years,” she wrote.

“She also lives a low carbon lifestyle: she’s vegetarian, uses public transport, and buys second-hand. Why aren’t we talking about the fact that we ship most of our commodities around the country by truck, not rail? Or that the agricultural sector, our largest emitter, is still not paying for carbon emissions (and that when the ETS is finally enforced in 2025, we can expect that agriculture will be heavily subsidised)? The conversation needs to be about radically reimagining the way we live, building sustainable communities, and producing and consuming locally, not gotchas and petty pointscoring.”

She added, “Our young people are genuinely terrified about the world they are inheriting. That is what matters.”