Donald Trump a clear winner at World Economic Forum, despite best efforts of climate doomsayers

The theme for the World Economic forum in Davos this week is “Stakeholders for a Cohesive and Sustainable World”. It’s a noble aim but one that’s looking increasingly unlikely.

“Davos Man” — the pejorative shorthand for the rich liberal elite who catch up in the Swiss Alps each year — is still in control of the agenda of the world’s most elite conference. The vague nouns beloved of Davos men and women — inclusion, resilience, climate ­action, sustainability — peppered the program, which is in full swing this week with more than 3000 delegates in attendance.

But their political power is slipping away, starkly illustrated when the conference’s two highly unlikely protagonists — Donald Trump and Swedish teen activist Greta Thunberg — were anything but cohesive on Wednesday.

Trump, the face of resurgent populist politics throughout the West and a conventional approach to business and economic growth, clashed with Thunberg, who shot to stardom as the frustrated face of “climate action” — a sort of Joan of Arc who demands an immediate end to fossil fuel use.

German economist Klaus Schwab founded the World Economic Forum in 1971. A not-for-profit foundation, its mission is to “improve the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas”.

No event attracts such a prestigious flock of political and business leaders. Apart from the US President, this year’s talkfest saw Prince Charles, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Alphabet chief executive Sundar Pichai rub shoulders.

For Trump, this year’s conference was a platform to rub his success in the noses of the world’s elite, who had largely written him off when he was running for the White House in 2016, then derided his early years as President — and now face his likely re-election before the next Davos meeting in January next year.

“The American dream is back, bigger, better and stronger than ever before … and no one is benefiting more than America’s middle-class,” Trump told the forum.

It’s a claim, however galling for the audience, that is becoming harder to refute. Wage growth in the US has picked up under his presidency, rising back above 3 per cent and bringing to an end a period of real income stagnation more than a decade long.

The US, with a freshly inked deal with China, appears to be winning the trade war. The stockmarket, Trump’s preferred measure of success, has continued to achieve new records. And the US economy is wallowing in the longest economic expansion in its history.

“ ‘America First’ does not mean America alone,” Trump memorably said in his first visit as President in 2018. He didn’t attend last year’s summit amid a partial US government shutdown. This year, the timing was particularly sweet given his impeachment trial was kicking off in the Senate back in Washington, DC, at the same time.

Trump was sending a message not only to the world but also to his Democratic foes. “We will never let radical socialists destroy our economy, wreck our country or eradicate our liberty,” Trump said, in a none too veiled swipe at calls to stamp out fossil fuel use or impose taxes to curb carbon dioxide.

“Fear and doubt is not a good thought process because this is a time for tremendous hope and joy and optimism,” he said, calling on delegates to “reject the perennial prophets of doom and their predictions of the apocalypse”.

Trump struck the wrong, upbeat tone at a conference convened on the premise of an urgent need for action to save the planet, revelling in the US’s new-found position as the world’s No 1 producer of oil and natural gas.

Enter Thunberg, the anti-Trump, who sat just behind Cormann as Trump spoke. Thunberg, who chided governments for “listening to her but not hearing” in her own speech, has become the chief prophet of doom since she burst on to the world stage last year.

“We don’t need to cut emissions, we need to stop emissions,” she urged, before going on to ­accuse leaders of “cheating and fiddling around with numbers” with talk of cutting emissions to “net zero” — which means emitting no more carbon than is absorbed by the planet — by 2050.

“Our house is still on fire. Your inaction is fuelling the flames by the hour, and we are telling you to act as if you loved your children above all else,” she added, saying “planting trees” wasn’t enough.

Thunberg’s earnest pleas have sway in the world’s boardrooms, such as that of international financial consulting giant deVere.

Only last week global investment giant BlackRock announced it was to shift out of companies linked to fossil fuel.

If Davos has made anything clear, it’s that any revolution will be powered by fossil fuels. The views of the democratically elected Trump will overwhelm those of the technocrats.

While Thunberg won the latter crowd at Davos, it’s not clear she is helping the cause of furthering ­efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions among the broader public who ultimately pick our leaders.

She may be preaching to the converted, turning off those on the fence who might not think a teenager is the best authority on such matters, while making people who don’t believe in climate change even more ardent deniers.

“Despite the considerable investments, renewable energies, such as wind power and photovoltaics are still not capable of satisfying the growing global energy demand,” noted Eric Heymann, a top resource analyst at Deutsche Bank, in a recent analysis.

All the panels in the world can’t change that basic fact.

SOURCE 

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The Israel-U.S. Model Has Been a Resounding Success

Victor Davis Hanson
 
Whether by accident or by deliberate osmosis, Israel and the U.S. have adopted similar solutions to their existential problems.

Before 2002, during the various Palestinian intifadas, Israel suffered hundreds of deaths and thousands of injuries from suicide bombers freely crossing from the West Bank and Gaza into Israel.

In response, Israel planned a vast border barrier. The international community was outraged. The Israeli left called the idea nothing short of “apartheid.”

However, after the completion of the 440-mile border barrier — part concrete well, part wire fencing — suicide bombings and terrorist incursions into Israel declined to almost nil.

The wall was not entirely responsible for enhanced Israeli security. But it freed up border manpower to patrol more vigorously. The barrier also was integrated with electronic surveillance and tougher laws against illegal immigration.

The wall also brought strategic and political clarity. Those who damned Israel but freely crossed its borders sounded incoherent when they became furious that the barrier prevented access to the hated Zionist entity.

The Trump administration is currently seeking funds to create new border walls and replace old, porous fencing in order to stem illegal immigration on the southern border.

The strategy seems similar: The wall will free up manpower for better border policing. It likewise provides a certain political clarity. The United States is often criticized by Mexico and other Latin American countries. It is now being taken to task for the effort to make it more difficult to illegally enter such a supposedly unwelcome and hostile landscape.

For years, Israel’s great weakness was its dependence on imported energy, while its neighboring enemies grew rich exporting oil and natural gas. Yet in the last decade, Israel has ramped up production to take advantage of its vast natural gas reserves — to the point that it is not just self-sufficient in fossil fuels but soon will become a major exporter.

Now, Israel cannot be threatened economically by either Iran or various Persian Gulf monarchies. Its economy is stronger than ever. Europeans suddenly are more accommodating, given that Israel may well become a natural gas exporter to a fuel-hungry Europe.

Like Israel, but unlike Europe, the U.S. was eager to frack and horizontally drill to tap vast new fossil fuel reserves. The change in U.S. strategic energy independence is similarly astounding.

America is now the largest producer of natural gas and oil in the world. Its output has increased world supply, dropped prices and hurt America’s oil-exporting enemies.

The relative power of Russia and Middle Eastern nations, such as Iran, over U.S. decision-making has radically diminished — along with the need to station huge numbers of American troops in the volatile Middle East.

As in Israel, opponents either argued that more drilling would ruin the environment or that it would not work. They seem to be wrong on both counts.

Israel’s foreign policy could be called Jacksonian. Israel allies with friends, neutrals and former enemies whenever they share particular strategic goals.

In the topsy-turvy Middle East, Israel is now sometimes a strategic partner with formerly hostile regimes in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies. They all share greater fears of theocratic Iran and its terrorist appendages in Lebanon, Syria and Yemen.

Apparently, much of the Arab world is no longer as interested in the Palestinian desire to destroy Israel. Many Palestinian groups are allied with a despised Iran, while many Arabs believe that Israel’s strength can sometimes be strategically useful.

Current American realism is similar. The U.S. is neither isolationist nor an interventionist nation-builder. Its foreign-policy goals are to enhance its military, expand its already powerful economy, limit its strategic exposure, and bank its resulting hard and soft power to use only as a deterrent force against those who kill Americans or endanger U.S. interests.

Instead of cajoling allies to join us in expeditionary wars abroad, the U.S. increasingly appears reluctant to intervene, especially in the Middle East. As a result, former critics are now becoming suppliants requesting U.S. assistance.

As with Israel, the U.S. is less eager to apply political litmus tests to its occasional allies. It also seeks to avoid quagmires where its overwhelming conventional firepower can be neutralized by terrorists and urban guerrillas.

The promoters of these unconventional policies, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump, are both despised by their respective establishments and under constant threat of removal by their livid political opponents.

Yet they both have transformed their respective countries. Their policies remind us that it is sometimes preferable to be respected rather than just be liked — and that when a nation is strong and does not beg for help, it often finds more than it needs.

SOURCE 

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IN BRIEF

A TALE OF TWO WHISTLEBLOWERS: Whistleblower who reported government waste, fraud, and abuse gets none of the protections the anti-Trump whistleblower received (RealClearPolitics)

VIOLATES FEDERAL LAW: Trump administration plans action against California over abortion-coverage requirement (The Wall Street Journal)

WARREN CORNERED: Father asks Elizabeth Warren if he's going to get his money back after paying for daughter's education (The Daily Wire)

VILLAGE ACADEMICS: Democrat professors outnumber Republicans 9:1 at top colleges (Washington Examiner)

VILLAGE ACADEMIC CURRICULUM: LGBTQ education is now mandatory in New Jersey schools (The Philadelphia Inquirer)

THE UGLINESS OF IDENTITY POLITICS: Miami PD suspends white officer who begins identifying as "black" (The American Mirror)

RIGHT TO LIFE: Tennessee governor announces fetal heartbeat bill, other abortion restrictions (National Review)

FOR THE RECORD: Toxic "forever chemicals" found in drinking water throughout the U.S. (USA Today)

POLICY: State Department is right to tackle "birth tourism" (The Heritage Foundation)

POLICY: Google is posing a serious threat to innovation (Issues & Insights)

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