THUNBERG: ‘Your inaction is fueling the flames by the hour…’
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) President Donald Trump boasted about economic revival in the United States and warned about those who spread climate alarmism at this week’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, just hours after 17-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg claimed the Earth “is on fire.”
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
“We must reject the perennial prophets of doom and their predictions of the apocalypse,” Trump said during his speech, which focused mainly on the U.S.’s “economic boom.”
“America is thriving. America is flourishing and yes, America is winning again like never before,” Trump said, touting his administration’s recent trade deals with Canada, Mexico, and China.
Thunberg had spoken at the forum just hours before Trump arrived, and used her speech as yet another opportunity to rip world leaders who refuse to “do anything” about climate change.
“I wonder, what will you tell your children was the reason to fail and leave them facing the climate chaos you knowingly brought upon them?” she said, according to the New York Times. “Our house is still on fire. Your inaction is fueling the flames by the hour.”
Other climate activists at the event criticized Trump for failing to address climate change beyond a commitment that the U.S. will join the trillion trees initiative.
“He managed to say absolutely zero on climate change,” said Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz. “Meanwhile we’re going to roast.”
Trump agreed to join the forum’s initiative to plant 1 trillion trees worldwide, but Thunberg dismissed the gesture: “Planting trees is good of course, but it’s nowhere near enough.”
Efforts to reduce carbon emissions aren’t enough either, Thunberg said, throwing a jab at Democratic leaders in the U.S. who have made cutting carbon emissions a climate priority.
“Let’s be clear. We don’t need a ‘low carbon economy.’ We don’t need to ‘lower emissions,’” she said. “Our emissions have to stop.”
(The Associated Press contributed to this report).