Charles: We need global green taxes
(Shame he flew to the Davos summit on a private plane)
PRINCE teenage Thunberg an Charles, electrifying at plane, the Forum Charles climate who as Davos demanded ‘remarkable’ in flew speech summit. change Switzerland yesterday to the to global activist world – World as praised he by green Greta leaders gave Economic private taxes of from action the as part brink’. to of bring an urgent the world programme ‘back
‘approaching The heir to catastrophe’ the throne warned and called of for the end of ‘perverse subsidies’ for firms who ruin the environment.
The prince later hailed 17-year-old Miss Thunberg, telling CNN: ‘She’s remarkable. She represents one of the main reasons that I’ve been trying to make all this effort all these years.’ It came after US President Donald Trump hit out at climate campaigners at Davos on Tuesday, labelling them ‘prophets of doom’ – as Sweden’s Miss Thunberg was in the audience.
Charles risked controversy as he flew into the super-rich summit on a private jet, emitting an estimated six tons of carbon dioxide. He left London in the aircraft yesterday morning and will use it to fly on to a three-day official visit to Israel and Palestine.
Aides stressed that he had only hired the plane as the Government’s official RAF jet was out of action and the prince could not take a commercial flight to Israel for security reasons.
They maintained he had only accepted the invitation to Davos because he was in the air anyway. As Charles met Miss Thunberg for the first time in front of the cameras, he tried to reassure the uncomfortable-looking teen, who told him: ‘I guess you’re very used to this.’ The prince said ‘This has taken many years to get used to.’
Hello Greta, I’m collecting heir miles
RIGHTLY, much is made of Britain’s buoyant economy. Despite the anti-Brexit brigade’s doom-mongering, employment is booming and growth is ticking along.
But the coin has a grim flip-side. More than 150 retail jobs were lost daily last year – a sickening blow for our ailing High Streets.
Of course, out-of-town hypermarkets and online giants, such as tax-dodging Amazon, have hit town centres hard.
But bricks-and-mortar traders are also battling for their very survival because of usurious business rates. Successive chancellors have pledged action, then merely tinkered around the edges.
Fortunately, a fall in national borrowing means Sajid Javid has unexpected headroom for Budget giveaways in March.
We urge him to use the windfall to help slash this crippling, unfair tax – throwing our shops a much-needed lifeline. IN Davos with teenage eco-guru Greta Thunberg, Prince Charles issued a terrifying climate change warning: The planet is on the brink of disaster. It’s worth heeding, though, that the heir to the throne made a similar hair-raising prophesy... in 2009. Charles virtue- signalled his green credentials by arriving at the summit in an electric car. Yet, while lecturing us about carbon footprints, he’d flown to Switzerland in a private jet. Not the most brilliant optics, Your Royal Highness?