Australia joining US in openly trashing global climate efforts

Bill McKibben warns Australia risks
 missing out on the new jobs and
 investment opportunities offered by
 renewable energy industries.

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. Here we are – Donald Trump is about to become the 45th president of the United States and we have to prepare for the onslaught.

It beggars belief that in 2016 an outright climate change denier could rise to the highest office in the US, dragging with him a Republican controlled Congress hungry to revive the old glory days of coal, gas and oil, not to mention a Secretary of State that until last month ran the biggest oil company on earth.

Yet while Australians may groan and worry at the destruction that Trump will bring, take a look at your own Trump-like administration.

Washington DC may be awash with fossil fuel operatives, but Australia is no stranger to fossil fuel barons holding political sway either – indeed, you elected one to Parliament a few years ago in the form of Clive Palmer. And as Trump thrusts the US firmly into a position as international climate pariah, we are sadly joining Australia as two rogue developed nations openly trashing global climate efforts.

Bill McKibben writes for The Sydney Morning Herald - “Australia joining US in openly trashing global climate efforts.”