Greta Thunberg Clashes With US Treasury Secretary In Davos

The Guardian - Graeme Wearden

Climate activist responds after Steven Mnuchin suggests she should study economics

Greta Thunberg has been in Davos to push for immediate, radical change on the climate emergency. Photograph: Denis Balibouse/Reuters

Donald Trump’s treasury secretary has clashed with Greta Thunberg after responding to the activist’s call for immediate fossil fuel divestment by telling the 17-year-old to go to college and study economics.
In an attempt to slap down the climate emergency movement, Steven Mnuchin pretended not to know who Thunberg was, before dismissing her concerns as ill-informed.
Asked whether calls for public and private-sector divestment from fossil fuel companies would threaten US growth, Mnuchin jibed: “Is she the chief economist? Who is she, I’m confused” – before clarifying that he was joking.
“After she goes and studies economics in college she can come back and explain that to us,” Mnuchin added, at a press conference at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Thunberg, 17, responded by tweeting a graph from a UN report showing how the world’s remaining carbon budget will be used up by 2027 unless global emissions are curbed. “My gap year ends in August, but it doesn’t take a college degree in economics to realise that our remaining 1,5° carbon budget and ongoing fossil fuel subsidies and investments don’t add up,” she pointed out.

My gap year ends in August, but it doesn’t take a college degree in economics to realise that our remaining 1,5° carbon budget and ongoing fossil fuel subsidies and investments don’t add up. 1/3 pic.twitter.com/1virpuOyYG

— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) January 23, 2020

Mnuchin’s comments expose the huge gulf that still exists between climate activists and the White House. Pressed on the climate emergency, Mnuchin insisted that environmental issues are “clearly complicated”.
He said: “When I was allowed to drive I had a Tesla. I drove in California. I liked it.
“But nobody focuses on how that electricity is made and what happens to the storage and the environmental issues on all these batteries.”
He also claimed the US was showing leadership in tackling emissions – but through its private sector rather than government. President Trump believes in clean air and water, and a clean environment, Mnuchin insisted, but also believes that more attention should be paid to the environmental damage caused by China and India.

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

People who call for divestment should remember there are “significant economic issues, issues with jobs”, he continued. “Many economies are transitioning to more efficient and cleaner energy. That doesn’t have to be all renewables.”

Links

• Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin Takes Jab at Greta Thunberg at Davos
• 'Who is She?' Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin Questions Greta Thunberg's Economic Expertise at Davos
• Trump and the Teenager: A Climate Showdown at Davos
• Trump Mocks Greta Thunberg on Twitter, and She Jabs Back
• Greta Thunberg’s Message at Davos Forum: ‘Our House Is Still on Fire’
• Greta Thunberg’s Remarks at the Davos Economic Forum
• Greta Thunberg Tells Davos Leaders That Planting Trees Isn't Enough As Donald Trump Talks Up Economy
• Trump Blasts 'Prophets Of Doom' In Attack On Climate Activism
• 'How Is This Possible?': Greta Thunberg Weighs In On Australia's Bushfire Crisis
• Governments, Business 'Misleading' On Climate, Teen Activist Greta Thunberg Said
• GretaThunberg: TIME 2019 Person of the Year
• Becoming Greta: ‘Invisible Girl’ to Global Climate Activist, With Bumps Along the Way

As Earth’s Population Heads To 10 Billion, Does Anything Australians Do On Climate Change Matter?

The Conversation - Mark Beeson

The United Nations predicts the world will be home to nearly 10 billion people by 2050 – making global greenhouse emission cuts ever more urgent. NASA/Joshua Stevens

Mark Beeson Mark Beeson is Professor of International Politics at the University of Western Australia. Before joining UWA at the beginning of 2015, he was Professor of International Relations at Murdoch University. Previously he taught at the universities of Griffith, Queensland, York (UK) and Birmingham, where he was also head of department. He is the founding editor of Critical Studies of the Asia Pacific (Palgrave).

As unprecedented bushfires continue to ravage the country, Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his government have been rightly criticised for their reluctance to talk about the underlying drivers of this crisis. Yet it’s not hard to see why they might be dumbstruck.

The human race has never had to grapple with a problem as large, complex or urgent as climate change. It’s not that there aren’t solutions available. There are already some hopeful signs of an energy transition in Australia. As Professor Ross Garnaut has explained, it would be in Australia’s economic interests to become a low-carbon energy superpower.
To successfully tackle climate change will require some painful transitions domestically, and unprecedented levels of international coordination and cooperation. But that isn’t happening. Global action to cut emissions is falling far short of what’s needed – and meanwhile, though it’s controversial to mention, the world’s population quietly climbs ever higher.

Our growing population challenge
The United Nations’ World Population Prospects 2019 report forecast that by 2027, India will overtake China as the world’s most populous country.
By 2050, the UN predicts that the world’s population will be nearly 10 billion, up from 7.7 billion now. Nine countries are expected to be home to more than half of that growth: India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Congo, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Indonesia, Egypt and the United States. The population of sub-Saharan Africa is expected to double by 2050 (a 99% increase), while Australia and New Zealand are expected to grow more slowly (28% increase).

The world’s population growth rate in recent years. World Population Prospects 2019, United Nations, CC BY

Given how difficult climate politics have been here in Australia, why would we expect it to be any more politically feasible in say, India, which claims the right to develop as we did? However self-serving Australian coal supporters’ arguments about lifting Indians out of poverty are, the underlying questions of national autonomy and the ‘right’ to develop are not easily refuted.

Even talking about demography is asking for trouble – especially if it becomes caught up with questions of race, identity and the most fundamental of human rights, the right to reproduce.
While reducing population growth is plainly important in the long-term, it isn’t a quick fix for all our environmental problems. In the meantime, research has shown that supporting education for girls in poor countries is one of the single most important things we can do now to address this issue.

How Australia can show leadership

I think we need to understand that global emissions don’t have an accent, they come from many countries and we need to look at a global solution… – Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Insiders, ABC, 12 January 2020

This is the central defence of business as usual: there’s no point in Australia making huge sacrifices and ‘wrecking’ (or transforming, depending on your perspective) the economy if no one else is doing so. We contribute less than 2% to global greenhouse emissions, so – some claim – we can’t make any real difference.
As outlined in my 2019 book, Environmental Populism: The Politics of Survival in the Anthropocene, nations such as Australia can play a useful role by showing what an enlightened country, with the capacity and incentive to act, might do. If we don’t have the means and the compelling environmental reasons to make tough but meaningful policy choices, who does?
But even in the unlikely event that Australians collectively retrofitted the entire economy along sustainable lines, there would still be a lot of the world that wouldn’t, or couldn’t even if they wanted to. The development imperative really is non-negotiable in India, China and the more impoverished states of sub-Saharan Africa.

Will China lead the way?
From the privileged perspective of wealthy Australians, the ‘good’ news is that the ecological footprint of the average Ethiopian is seven times smaller than ours. India’s average is even less, despite all the recent development. However, people in India and Ethiopia may not think that’s a good thing.
One of the paradoxical impacts of globalisation is that everyone is increasingly conscious of their relative place in the international scheme of things. The legitimacy of governments – especially unelected authoritarian regimes like China’s - increasingly revolves around their capacity to deliver jobs and rising living standards. Where governments can’t deliver, the population vote with their feet.
As naturalist Sir David Attenborough warned last week, Australia’s current fires are another sign that “the moment of crisis has come”. He called on China for the global leadership we’ve been missing:

If the Chinese come and say: 'Not because we are worried about the world but for our own reasons, we are going to take major steps to curb our carbon output […]’, everybody else would fall into line, one thinks. That would be the big change that one could hope would happen.

China has arguably already made the biggest contribution to our collective welfare with its highly contentious, now abandoned one-child policy. China’s population would have been around 400 million people larger without it, pushing us closer to the crisis Sir David fears.
To be clear, I’m not advocating compulsory population control, here or anywhere. But we do need to consider a future with billions more people, many of them aspiring to live as Australians do now.
Looking ahead, will Australians try to keep living as we do today? Or will we decide to set a new example of living well, without such a heavy ecological footprint? Resolving all these conundrums won’t be easy; perhaps not even possible. That’s another discomfiting reality that we may have to get used to.

Links

• World Population Prospects 2019: Highlights
• Human population reduction is not a quick fix for environmental problems
• Climate change, fertility and girls’ education
• Meeting our climate commitments without wrecking the economy
• Environmental Populism: The Politics of Survival in the Anthropocene
• Global Footprint Network
• Sir David Attenborough warns of climate 'crisis moment'

(AU) Why Prescribed Burns Don’t Stop Wildfires

Sydney Morning Herald - Byron Lamont | Tianhua He

The Prime Minister has declared hazard-reduction burning is just as important as action on climate change to limit Australia’s wildfire risk – but with lives, properties, flora and fauna at real risk, it is critical to understand the realities and limitations of fire management.

The moment the Gospers Mountain fire hammered Bilpin in December. Credit:Nick Moir

Authors  Byron Lamont is a professor in plant ecology at Curtin University Tianhua He is a senior fellow at Curtin University

Prescribed burns are fires created by fire-management authorities to reduce fuel in an attempt to stop the advance of future possible wildfires.
Unfortunately, areas in the devastated fire zones that recently had prescribed burns offered little resistance to the advance of the latest wildfires. The fires simply passed straight through them. But why?
Current practices of prescribed fires essentially burn the ground flora, the shrubs, herbs and creepers. At most, heat from the ground might scorch the upper canopy. It tends to be patchy. These are called surface fires.
But wildfires burn everything. They create their own inferno. Their greatest heat is produced from fuel in the tree canopy. The convective currents created by the firestorm spray embers up to kilometres from the fire front. They simply drop onto or over areas that have received prescribed burns. These are called crown fires.
The aim of fire managers is to avoid crown fires during prescribed burning for fear that the fire gets out of control and goes far beyond the area intended to be burnt.
Controlled fires are only meant to stop the odd cigarette thrown out of a car window from starting a fire, or lightning strikes igniting the ground flora. They may not even achieve those goals because scorching the trees above can lead to considerable leaf drop and build-up of litter that increases flammability and deters germination and seedling establishment.
They could even introduce a new danger. Along transport routes, firebreaks and access tracks, the burnt edges give access to exotic weeds that blow in, especially grasses and herbs from South Africa and Europe. These weeds germinate far more readily than native plants; they are more flammable than the native plants and once they have invaded, they are there to stay.
So, on grounds that they do not stop the progress of wildfires and indeed may lead to weed encroachment, increasing the rate of prescribed burning is no answer to the current wildfire problem.
A wildfire, in its aftermath, will act as an effective deterrent to further fire because no combustible fuel remains. But this is hardly a solution. This inhibitory effect might last for five or so years, but when the vegetation returns it will be able to carry a fire again.
It may seem counter-intuitive but the longer old-growth forests remain fire-free, the less combustible they become. The thicker canopy creates more shade, the undergrowth becomes thinner and less vigorous - and hence there is less fuel for fires.
Ironically, the Australian flora has experienced wildfires of the current type for many millions of years. It is adapted to wildfires, not prescribed burns. Thus, all eucalypts, paperbarks, she-oaks and banksias release their seeds only when their canopies are burnt and there is massive seedling recruitment in the next wet season that ensures the vegetation recovers.
Have no doubt, the vegetation will recover strongly. But with reduced rainfall it will be unusually slow. Ultimately, we are guests in the world’s most flammable continent and have to learn to live with that fact. The Aboriginal inhabitants did, but we have not.
In the long term, prescribed burns do not achieve the goal of protecting life and property. The side effects of climate change will be a period of intensified fire as mean temperatures rise and dry fuel increases. This will be followed later by less intense fire as the fuel load gradually reduces in the presence of lower rainfall.
In the meantime, Australians should expect the worst and plan for more devastating wildfires.

Links

• Prime Minister says hazard reduction burns as important as emissions
• PM calls for a national hazard reduction burn system panned by experts
• Hazard reduction program
• Is Fuel Reduction Burning the Answer?
• Explainer: how effective is bushfire hazard reduction on Australia's fires? 
• Are hazard reduction burns effective in managing bushfires? The answer is complicated

{AU) ‘I Am Horrified’: Scientist Who Linked Climate Change With Bushfires In 1987 Says It’s Not Too Late

New Daily - Cait Kelly

The link between climate change and bushfires has been known for more than 30 years.

A scientist who predicted our current bushfire crisis four decades ago is ‘horrified’ we did not listen to his warnings on climate change.
In 1987 then-CSIRO scientist Dr Tom Beer pioneered the world’s first research into the link between climate change and worsening fire seasons.
It might seem obvious now, but Dr Beer’s research, published as ‘Australian bushfire danger under changing climatic regimes’, predicted that growing greenhouse gas emissions would have horrific consequences for Australia’s bushfire season.
For Dr Beer, this summer has been the worst told-you-so moment.

Dr Tom Beer. Photo: RSV

“For decades, climate scientists have been warning Australian governments about the escalating threat of catastrophic bushfire conditions because of climate change,” Dr Beer said.“I am horrified that what my study found has now occurred and the fact this means it is only going to get worse,” he said.
This year’s bushfire season started early and has killed 29 people, destroyed more than 2200 homes, burnt 10 million hectares and covered large areas of the globe in toxic smoke.
When Dr Beer started his research the Ash Wednesday fires of 1983 were the worst the country had seen.
“Since then, we have experienced the Black Saturday fires, had to create a new catastrophic fire danger rating, and in the past few months, we’ve seen 10 million hectares of Australia burn,” he said.
His research was presented at the 1987 CSIRO conference and published in a book. Dr Beer spoke to the media and travelled internationally to talk to specialists in the US about his findings.
For the most part, it was ignored by the Australian government.

Not too late
On Wednesday the 72-year-old was joined by Professor of Pyrogeography and Fire Science at the University of Tasmania, David Bowman and the Climate Council’s Professor Will Steffen, in calling for urgent action.
“Climate change is fuelling the national bushfire catastrophe, and it will get worse without radical action,” they said.
Calling for state and federal governments to work together, they said Australia needs an urgent plan to prepare for worsening fire seasons and to rapidly phase out the burning of coal, oil and gas.
“The length of the bushfire season has increased substantially, making it harder to prepare for dangerous conditions,” he said.
“The costs of fighting fires have also increased substantially, as have the costs of their impacts.
“Clearly, bushfire conditions are now more dangerous, and the risk will continue to escalate. The risk to people and property has increased significantly and will continue to do so.”

Their calls for urgent action have been backed up by the business, medical and scientific communities here and abroad.

Last month, a team of UK climate scientists conducted a rapid review of research conducted since 2013 and found that human-induced climate change will cause an extra 20 to 30 severe fire danger days each year in the future.

We need to phase out coal to mitigate the climate threat. Photo: Getty

The reason action on climate change has stalled is vested interests borrowing straight from the big tobacco playbook, spokesman for the Australian Lawyers Alliance, Greg Barns, said.
“In some ways, this is like the tobacco debate when we knew tobacco was harmful, that cigarettes caused cancer but governments ignored the advice,” Mr Barns said.
“There are some analogies between the way in which the big pharma and big tobacco litigation emerged, where there was clear and unequivocal advice given to governments which said that radical action had to be taken.
“Particularly in relation to planning and environmental decisions, in relations to the increase in bushfires, the strength of those fires and the length, as a result of climate change.
“Governments in effect ignored those reports, or worse than that, buried them. So there are some parallels.”
The similarities in the situation could potentially lead to class actions against the government, Mr Barns said.
“For a government to deliberately ignore un-contradicted scientific evidence, that showed an increased risk of bushfires, weather catastrophes, is gross negligence and shows a complete lack of moral compass.
“Speaking from a legal point of view, if it can be shown that the government has deliberately failed to implement policies when they had demonstrable evidence, that is a very serious matter.”

Links

• Australian bushfire danger under changing climatic regimes
• Climate change increases the risk of wildfires
• How climate change increases bushfire risk
• What are the links between climate change and bushfires? – explainer 
• Is there a link between climate change and bushfires?
• Australian Lawyers Alliance

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?

Greta Thunberg inspired a global movement for climate action, but some haven't welcomed her message. 

---

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.

US President @realDonaldTrump spoke at #wef20, telling the audience the United States is in the midst of an economic boom.

Find out more: https://t.co/91BiDmegfv @POTUS #wef20 pic.twitter.com/4Q1jXrxDTU

— World Economic Forum (@wef) January 21, 2020

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

• GretaThunberg: TIME 2019 Person of the Year
• Greta Thunberg And Mass Protests Defined The Year In Climate Change
• Governments, Business 'Misleading' On Climate, Teen Activist Greta Thunberg Said
• (US) Trump Thought The Paris Deal Was Too Expensive. Wait’ll He Sees The Cost Of Climate Change.
• 'How Is This Possible?': Greta Thunberg Weighs In On Australia's Bushfire Crisis
• Trump Skips G7 Climate Meeting, Says He Won't Risk US Wealth For 'Dreams And Windmills'
• As G-20 Reaffirms Fight Against Climate Change, Trump Again Stands Apart
• White House Blocked Intelligence Agency’s Written Testimony Calling Climate Change ‘Possibly Catastrophic’
• Donald Trump’s Climate Denial Gets More Ridiculous By The Day
• Trump blasts 'prophets of doom' in attack on climate activism
• Donald Trump mocked Greta Thunberg over Time's Person of the Year announcement — so the teen climate activist fired back

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

The Guardian - Larry Elliott | Graeme Wearden

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

• Greta Thunberg Tells Davos Leaders That Planting Trees Isn't Enough As Donald Trump Talks Up Economy
• Analysis: Trump hails 1tn trees plan but ignores roots of problem
• GretaThunberg: TIME 2019 Person of the Year
• Greta Thunberg And Mass Protests Defined The Year In Climate Change
• Governments, Business 'Misleading' On Climate, Teen Activist Greta Thunberg Said
• (US) Trump Thought The Paris Deal Was Too Expensive. Wait’ll He Sees The Cost Of Climate Change.
• 'How Is This Possible?': Greta Thunberg Weighs In On Australia's Bushfire Crisis
• Trump Skips G7 Climate Meeting, Says He Won't Risk US Wealth For 'Dreams And Windmills'
• As G-20 Reaffirms Fight Against Climate Change, Trump Again Stands Apart
• White House Blocked Intelligence Agency’s Written Testimony Calling Climate Change ‘Possibly Catastrophic’
• Donald Trump’s Climate Denial Gets More Ridiculous By The Day
• Trump blasts 'prophets of doom' in attack on climate activism
• Donald Trump mocked Greta Thunberg over Time's Person of the Year announcement — so the teen climate activist fired back

(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

• Scott Morrison says the government is acting on emissions. Is it true?
• Scott Morrison's senior ministers discuss how to reposition climate policies
• Most Australian chief executives believe climate crisis a threat to business
• UK climate scientist corrects Australian MP Craig Kelly's 'blatant misrepresentation'
• Former Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull says Trump is the world's 'leading climate denier'
• No one job is rwoth saving at the expense of climate catastrophe. Not even Scott Morrison's
• Prime Minister Scott Morrison defends Australia's action on climate change in UN speech
• Great Barrier Reef group severs ties with Greyhound over Adani contract