DAVOS (Switzerland) • It is important to have open dialogues as climate change may be a matter of survival for the world, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in her special address at the World Economic Forum (WEF) yesterday.
When it comes to climate change, she said, the world needs an open dialogue to heal the gap between sceptics and believers as time is running out to cut the emissions that drive global warming.
"Time is pressing, so we - the older ones, I am 65 years old - must make sure that we take the impatience of young people positively and constructively," she said at the WEF in Davos, Switzerland.
The first two days of the annual gathering were dominated by the back-and-forth between 73-year-old US President and former businessman Donald Trump and 17-year-old Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg, with corporate leaders caught in the middle, concerned that there was a need for concrete decisions.
Dr Merkel drew applause from the Davos audience when she said opposing sides in polarised debates such as those on climate change had to learn how to talk to each other again.
She noted that Europe's ability to rise to the challenge of meeting its international climate pledges may be a matter of survival for the continent. This year, Europe and beyond are facing a "decade of action", she said in her speech, citing a comment from United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
Fulfilling the Paris climate accord pledges "may turn out to be a matter of survival", said the German leader.
Global leaders should listen to young voices that are campaigning for more trenchant policy to counteract global warming, she said, adding that the "impatience of young people" must be addressed, and "we are required to act accordingly".
Dr Merkel is making climate policy a focus of her last full year in power as Germany's leader. In the wake of mass protests over the past year, her administration has sought to kick-start her stalled climate agenda with a series of measures to help get the country on track to achieve a steep cut in carbon emissions.
Germany, Europe's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, is lagging behind in meeting those targets. It aims to cut emissions by 40 per cent by this year compared with 1990 levels, but needs to close a big gap to get there.
The moves include placing levies on transportation, investing heavily in railways and applying a timetable for power companies to exit coal. Yet critics say the measures are too little and too late, and that taxpayers ought not to be paying billion-dollar compensations to utilities.
REUTERS, BLOOMBERG
