23/01/2020

Greta Thunberg Tells Davos Leaders That Planting Trees Isn't Enough As Donald Trump Talks Up Economy

ABC News - ABC | AP


Mr Trump slams climate activists in opening address at World Economic Forum (ABC News)

Key points
  • Donald Trump called climate activists "heirs of yesterday's foolish fortune tellers" but said he was a "very big believer in the environment"
  • Greta Thunberg said the inaction of world leaders was hastening climate change
  • Nobel-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz also criticised Mr Trump's speech.
Greta Thunberg has told the World Economic Forum in Davos that planting trees is not enough to address climate change, an apparent rebuke of a pledge made moments earlier by US President Donald Trump.
"Our house is still on fire," Ms Thunberg said, echoing remarks she made at the annual meeting a year ago.
"Your inaction is fuelling the flames."
The ongoing row between the teenage activist and 73-year-old US President around climate change appeared an attempt by both to frame the argument at Davos.
Ms Thunberg called for an immediate end to fossil fuel investments in front of a packed audience less than a hour after watching Mr Trump make his keynote address in the Swiss ski resort.
Mr Trump announced the US would join an existing initiative to plant 1 trillion trees, but also spoke at length about the economic importance of oil and gas and called climate change activists "the perennial prophets of doom" who were predicting an "apocalypse".
Ms Thunberg responded by referring to "empty words and promises" by world leaders.


Ms Thunberg says simply planting trees is not enough to address climate change (ABC News)
"You say children shouldn't worry … don't be so pessimistic and then, nothing, silence," Ms Thunberg said.
Earlier, she called on world leaders to listen to young activists, who have followed her to Davos this year.
She and Mr Trump have been sparring for months.
Last month, the President told Ms Thunberg in a tweet to "chill" and to "work on her anger management problem".
  The voice of a generation?
It prompted a dry response from Ms Thunberg, who then changed her Twitter caption to read: "A teenager working on her anger management problem. Currently chilling and watching a good old-fashioned movie with a friend."
"I'm not a person that can complain about not being heard," she said, prompting laughter from the audience on the first day of the annual WEF meeting.
"The science and voice of young people is not the centre of the conversation, but it needs to be."
Among the young "climate heroes" being celebrated by the WEF is Irish teenage scientist Fionn Ferreira, who created a solution for preventing microplastics from reaching oceans.
They also include South African climate activist Ayakha Melithafa, 17, and Canadian Autum Peltier, who has been advocating for water conservation since she was eight.
Activists take part in a march to highlight issues surrounding climate change at the World Economic Forum in Davos. (REUTERS: Arnd Wiegmann)
Trump focuses on economy
In his address, Mr Trump mostly avoided environmental issues, instead talking up the US economy.
But he later told reporters: "I'm a very big believer in the environment. I want the cleanest water and the cleanest air".
He attended the event despite his impeachment trial in the US getting underway today.
Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz criticised the President's swipe at climate "pessimists".
US President Donald Trump has taken a swipe at "climate pessimists" at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland. (APL: Markus Schreib)
"As if what we are seeing with our eyes are not there," Mr Stiglitz said. "It's astounding."
  Indonesian pre-teen rails against
Australia's waste exports
Indonesian girl Aeshninna Azzahra, 12, pens an open letter to the Australian Prime Minister calling on him to halt exports of waste paper and plastics to her home province. 
This was the second time Mr Trump has taken the stage at the WEF meeting. Two years ago, he urged companies to invest in America after passing the first tax cuts to encourage business spending.
This year he thanked overseas companies for investing in the US, which he said was now on a better economic standing than he could have imagined when he took office three years ago.
"The time for scepticism is over," he said.
"To every business looking for a place to succeed — there is no better place than the US."
He also told a packed auditorium that trade deals struck this month with China and Mexico represented a model for the 21st Century.
Mr Trump also took his biggest swipe yet at the Federal Reserve, whose policies he believes are holding back the US economy.
"The Fed raised rates too quickly and has lowered them too slowly," he said.

Links
at No comments:

Trump Blasts 'Prophets Of Doom' In Attack On Climate Activism

The Guardian -  |

Comment came as Greta Thunberg demanded immediate action in Davos

Donald Trump decries climate 'prophets of doom' in Davos keynote speech.

Donald Trump told the world’s business leaders to stop listening to “prophets of doom” as he used a keynote speech at the World Economic Forum to attack the teenage activist Greta Thunberg over her climate crisis warnings.
The US president hailed America’s growth record and compared campaigners against global heating with those who feared a population explosion in the 1960s and mass starvation in the 1970s.
On an opening day in Switzerland dominated by the climate emergency, Thunberg scoffed at Trump’s claim that his backing for a new initiative to plant 1tn trees showed his concern for the environment.
“Our house is still on fire. Your inaction is fuelling the flames by the hour,” Thunberg said. “And we’re asking you to act as if you love your children more than anything else.”
The US president and Thunberg did not meet face to face at the WEF, but Trump left few in doubt about who he was referring to as he defended his record since entering the White House three years ago.
“This is not a time for pessimism,” he said. “This is a time for optimism. To embrace the possibilities of tomorrow, we must reject the perennial prophets of doom and their predictions of the apocalypse. They are the heirs of yesterday’s foolish fortune tellers.
“They want to see us do badly, but we don’t let that happen. They predicted an overpopulation crisis in the 1960s, mass starvation in the 70s, and an end of oil in the 1990s. These alarmists always demand the same thing: absolute power to dominate, transform and control every aspect of our lives. We will never let radical socialists destroy our economy, wreck our country or eradicate our liberty.”


What will you tell your children?': Greta Thunberg blasts climate inaction at Davos.

He said he was “a big believer in the environment” in a speech that ensured he was absent from Washington as impeachment hearings took place on Capitol Hill. “The environment to me is very important,” he said.
He made no mention of the climate emergency but backed the plan – launched in Davos – to capture carbon by planting trees on a mass scale in the coming years. “What I want is the cleanest water and the cleanest air,” he said.
Environmentalists were unimpressed by a speech in which Trump boasted that his support for the coal and oil industries meant the US was self-sufficient in energy.
Thunberg said: “Planting trees is good, of course, but it’s nowhere near enough, and it cannot replace real mitigation and re-wilding nature. We don’t need to lower emissions. Emissions need to stop.”
Thunberg had three demands for her Davos audience:
  • The halt of all investment in fossil fuel investment and extraction by companies, banks, institutions and governments.
  • An immediate end to all fossil fuel subsidies.
  • An immediate exit from fossil fuel investments.
“We don’t want it done in 2050, 2030, or even 2021, we want it done now,” Thunberg said. “You might think we’re naive, but if you won’t do it, you must explain to your children why you’ve given up on the Paris agreement goals, and knowingly created a climate crisis,” she said.
She then added that the right, the left, and the centre of politics had all failed the sustainability test. “No political ideology or economic structure has managed to tackle the climate and environmental emergency and create a cohesive and sustainable world.”
Jennifer Morgan, Greenpeace’s executive director, said: “The 1tn trees initiative didn’t make up for the lack of a wider attack on the climate emergency, and Trump had failed to appreciate the scale of the crisis.
“To assume you can have a great, profitable America, and happy Americans without understanding the risk to Americans from climate change is astounding. It just demonstrates the level of denial, and the capture of this government by the coal, oil and gas industries.”
Trump said the American dream was back, “bigger, better and stronger” than before, adding that the benefits of growth were going primarily to low-income workers rather than the better off. Trump added that 7m jobs had been created and 12,000 factories opened during his presidency.
Many of the president’s claims were rejected by the Columbia University economics professor Joseph Stiglitz. “Research shows that Trump normally tells five or six lies a day. He far exceeded that today,” he said, noting that growth had been faster under Barack Obama than it was currently under Trump, and that life expectancy had fallen every year of his presidency.
Although the US economy grew far more rapidly in previous decades than it has since he was elected in November 2016, Trump said: “I’m proud to say that the US is in an economic boom, the likes of which the world has never seen before.”
The main hall in Davos, together with an overspill room, were packed to hear the president, although there were some titters as he ran through a litany of boasts.
“I hold up the American model as an example to the world,” Trump said, contrasting his record with that of his predecessor, Obama.
The US was “thriving, flourishing and winning” unprecedentedly, he added, citing trade deals signed last week with China and Mexico-Canada as models for the 21st century.
“I am looking forward to a tremendous new trade deal with the UK,” Trump said, noting that Britain had a “wonderful new prime minister” in Boris Johnson, who was keen on a deal.
The president said the economic boom had happened despite the US Federal Reserve, which “raised rates too fast and cut them too slowly”.

Links
at No comments:

(AU) Too Clever By Half? PM Has Let The Climate Cat Out Of The Bag – And There’s No Putting It Back

New Daily - Paula Matthewson

Scott Morrison's endorsement of climate science could open the way, finally, for putting a price on carbon pollution. 
A lot of energy has been expended this week, particularly on social media, dismissing the prime minister’s talk about doing more on climate change.
It’s an understandable response, given Scott Morrison has clearly been reluctant to aggravate the forces of climate denial and resistance within the government’s ranks, let alone those in the conservative media.
What’s more, strategically leaked stories to the same right-wing media outlets have suggested the PM’s language could just be part of a public relations effort to make the government ‘appear’ more inclined to take climate action – without any real intention to do so.
But even if Mr Morrison had spin rather than action in mind when he mentioned ‘evolving’ the government’s climate policies last weekend, it may be impossible for him to put that genie back into the bottle.
Science Minister Karen Andrews is one Liberal who accepts the settled science. Photo: AAP
The PM not only created an expectation in the Australian community, he essentially gave permission to any other government MP to talk about climate action too. Ministers could speak without fear of breaching Cabinet solidarity in support of evolving the policy, while backbenchers could free-range on the path this evolution could take.
We didn’t have to wait long for that to occur. One contribution in particular was promising, with Science Minister Karen Andrews saying it was well past time to end the debate over the existence of climate change.
“Every second that we spend talking about whether the climate is changing, is a second we are not spending on looking at adaptation, mitigation strategies,” she said before meeting with scientists and researchers to discuss bushfires.
One of the Liberal MPs identified in this column last week – as potentially receptive to voter calls for stronger climate action – also spoke to the media along these lines.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported on Wednesday that Liberal MP Trent Zimmerman said “Australians want us to get on with the job of meeting our Paris emissions but look at what more we can do to reduce our emissions further.” However other moderate Liberals quoted in the same article were less forthright, simply backing the Science Ministers’ comments.
Trent Zimmerman sees the Paris accord as the start of further carbon reductions. Photo: ABC
The government’s initial, tentative comments about greater climate action have not received a particularly positive reception. As mentioned earlier, there is a strong suspicion that PM Morrison has no intention of walking this pro-climate action talk. Other critics accuse the government of deceiving voters by promoting its ‘practical’ climate actions, namely resilience and adaptation activities, to appear to be doing something while continuing to resist further emissions reduction.
The reality is that all three approaches are needed in an effective climate action plan – resilience, adaptation and emissions reduction (also called mitigation). In continuing to pressure the government to take stronger action, we should remember this.
It is easy to find fault in the Morrison government, or any Coalition government for that matter, when it comes to climate action. Ten years of refusing to accept what the climate science says has undoubtedly led to Australia’s negligent lack of preparedness for the current bushfire season. But now the PM has provided an opportunity – inadvertent or not – to change this.
It doesn’t matter if Scott Morrison intends to walk the talk on climate action. He has started a conversation that cannot be silenced with anything other than a response that is a genuine, effective climate action plan.

Links
at No comments: