Greta Thunberg
FILE PHOTO: Swedish climate change activist Greta Thunberg and Swiss activist Loukina Tille attend a session at the 50th World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, January 21, 2020. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photo
Donald Trump
U.S. President Donald Trump gestures during a bilateral meeting with Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan at the 50th World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, January 21, 2020. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

President Donald Trump criticized environmental "prophets of doom" on January 21 after Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg slammed authorities inactivity on climate change.

The 50th meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) went underway in the ski motel with avowed attention on climate change; however, with starkly unique visions over global warming laid bare.

"We have to reject the perennial prophets of doom and their predictions of the apocalypse," said Trump, grumbling that "they want to see us do badly."

He claimed that "alarmists" have been incorrect on preceding occasions using predicting population crisis, mass starvation, and the end of oil.

Trump branded the ones warning of out-of-control global warming and different environmental disasters, "the heirs of yesterday's foolish fortune tellers."

Thunberg, together with the audience, was listening to Trump's speech before the start of his Senate impeachment trial in Washington.

Trump informed the media later that his Davos trip was dedicated to meeting "the most important people in the world to bring back fantastic business."


"Others are just a hoax," he remarked of the "disgraceful" impeachment trial.

'Nothing has been done'

Thunberg, before Trump's attendance, underscored the message that inspired people across the world - saying "essentially nothing has been done" to fight climate change.

"It would require much greater than this. This is simply the very beginning," the 17-year-old climate activist said. She said there is a difference between being heard to leading to something.

Thunberg, speaking lightly and with a smile, mentioned that her campaign that began with school strikes had attracted massive interest without achieving real change yet.

Greenpeace, while the WEF and international business leaders were discussing climate change, said in a news report that a number of the globe's biggest banks, insurers, and pension funds collectively invested US$1.4 trillion in fossil gas businesses for the reason that Paris climate deal in 2016.

In his speech, Trump reeled off a list of achievements for the American economy and touted the United States as the "primary producer of oil and natural gas."

'Governments preserve to fail'

Sustainability is the buzzword on the Davos forum, which commenced in 1971, with heel crampons surpassed out to contributors to encourage them to walk on the icy streets as opposed to use cars, and the signage paint constituted of seaweed.

Trump's resistance to renewable energy, his withdrawal from the Paris agreement, and the unfastened hand extended to the fossil gas industry puts him at odds with the thrust of this year's event.

Eurasia Group president Ian Bremner told AFP at Davos that people are paying much more attention to the climate. He added there were "genuine action" by big players after funding titan BlackRock said it was partly divesting out of coal.

Business leaders are also concerned about the use of the worldwide economy whose prospects, according to the International Monetary Fund, have "improved."

The IMF reduced its global growth estimate for 2020 to 3.3 percent, saying that a current truce inside the trade battle among China and the USA had introduced a few stability.

After Oxfam issued a report outlining how the number of billionaires doubled in the previous decade and the world's 22 wealthiest guys now have more wealth than all the girls in Africa, activists would be required for a much higher concrete action to combat inequality.