Donald Trump slaps down claim ‘prophets of doom’ at World Economic Forum
Donald Trump makes clear he has no time for teen climate activist’s warnings as he talks up US economy in Switzerland.
Donald Trump has taken a veiled swipe at environmental activist Greta Thunberg at the World Economic Forum, attacking environmental “prophets of doom.”
Ms Thunberg was in the audience in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos as Mr Trump opened the forum hours before his impeachment trial began in Washington.
The 50th meeting of the World Economic Forum aimed for a strong focus on climate change but Mr Trump made clear he had no time for Ms Thunberg’s warning that “our house is still on fire.” Instead, he touted the US economy, which he said was enjoying an “unprecedented” boom thanks to his policies.
US President @realDonaldTrump spoke at #wef20, telling the audience the United States is in the midst of an economic boom.
— World Economic Forum (@wef) January 21, 2020
Find out more: https://t.co/91BiDmegfv @POTUS #wef20 pic.twitter.com/4Q1jXrxDTU
Although he did not explicitly mention climate or Ms Thunberg, Mr Trump urged the world to “reject the perennial prophets of doom and their predictions of the apocalypse,” in a remark widely understood as referring to the teen and her fellow climate-change activists.
Branding those warning of out-of-control global warming and other environmental disasters “the heirs of yesterday’s foolish fortune tellers,” he went on to assert that “alarmists” had been wrong over the decades when predicting population crisis, mass starvation or the end of oil.
World leaders should be optimistic over the global economy and climate change, he said in a speech that concentrated on his own accomplishments.
“This is not a time for pessimism. This is a time for optimism,” Mr Trump told the crowd of elite political and business leaders.
“Fear and doubt is not a good thought process because this is a time for tremendous hope and joy and optimism and action,” he said.
“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.”
Mr Trump also touted the US as the “number one producer of oil and natural gas” and said he would not let “radical socialists” attack the lucrative industry.
“The American dream is back, bigger, better, stronger than ever before,” he said.
Ms Thunberg ignored the US president’s slap down, turning her guns on her audience and telling them: “The facts are clear, but they are still too uncomfortable for you to address.
“You just leave it because you think it’s too depressing and people will give up, but people will not give up. You are the ones who are giving up.”
Speaking just after Mr Trump’s opening address, the teen brushed aside his announcement that the US would join the economic forum’s initiative to plant 1 trillion trees across the globe to help capture carbon dioxide from the Earth’s atmosphere.
“Planting trees is good of course but it’s nowhere near enough,” she said. “It cannot replace mitigation,” she added, referring to efforts to drastically cut emissions in the near term.
Ms Thunberg accused leaders of “cheating and fiddling around with numbers” with talk of cutting emissions to ‘net zero’ — that is, emitting no more carbon than is absorbed by the planet or technical means — by 2050.
“We don’t need to cut emissions, we need to stop emissions,” she said.
Earlier, Ms Thunberg had underlined her message on climate, saying that “basically nothing has been done” to fight climate change.
She acknowledged that her campaign, which began with school strikes, had attracted huge attention without yet achieving concrete change.
“There is a difference between being heard to actually leading to something,” she admitted.
With AFP
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