The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Thunberg urges leaders to heed climate warning
DAVOS FORUM: Trump calls for rejection of ‘predictions of the apocalypse’
Greta Thunberg was among four young climate activists to scold the elites gathered at the World Economic Forum for not doing enough to deal with the climate emergency and warned them time was running out.
At a panel in the Swiss ski resort of Davos, the four said they hoped their generation had found its voice and can work with those in power to bring about the necessary change to limit climate change.
Thunberg said not enough has been done. “We need to start listening to the science, and treat this crisis with the importance it deserves,” said the 17-year-old, just as US President Donald Trump was arriving in Davos to give a speech.
Mr Trump has pulled the US out of the Paris accord to limit climate change and has traded barbs with Thunberg on social media.
“Without treating it as a real crisis we cannot solve it,” Thunberg added.
The Swedish teenager came to fame by staging a regular strike at her school, sparking a global movement that eventually earned her Time Magazine’s award as the 2019 Person of the Year.
She said people are more aware about climate issues but being at the top of the agenda meant nothing if the world does not get to grips with the emergency.
“I am not the person who can complain about not being heard. I’m being heard all the time,” she quipped.
President Trump sought to sell the United States to the global business community, telling the conference in the Swiss Alps that America’s economic turnaround has been “nothing short of spectacular”.
“Today I’m proud to declare the United States is in the midst of an economic boom, the likes of which the world has never seen before,” the president said.
Climate issues were to be a main theme at the forum but Mr Trump said he was attending to encourage businesses to invest in the US.
He called for a rejection of “predictions of the apocalypse”.
He said: “These alarmists always demand the same thing – absolute power to dominate, transform and control every aspect of our lives.”
They were, he said, “the heirs of yesterday’s foolish fortune tellers”.
Pope Francis sent a message for the high-powered participants at the forum: “People, not profit, must be at the core of public policy,” it said.
Francis issued written greetings to remind delegates of the “moral obligation” to place “the human person, rather than the mere pursuit of power or profit, at the very centre of public policy”.