Incoming EU chief says to launch climate fund

The president-elect of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said Thursday the EU will launch a special fund to wean members off fossil fuels and hold wide-ranging consultations on Europe's future.

She was speaking in Poland, a coal-dependent country which last month blocked an EU bid to set a target of zero net greenhouse gas emissions, and urged measures to compensate the costs of switching to new energy sources.

"There will be a huge investment necessary in regions that have to step up into new technologies and new jobs. That's why we will create the Just Transition Fund, to support those regions," von der Leyen told a joint press conference with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.

With Britain scheduled to leave the EU by the end of October, von der Layen also announced that she would launch wide-ranging consultations on the future of the bloc after she takes office in November.

The initiative means "that we go out in our member states and discuss how people, the European people think the future of their European Union should be," she said.

Von der Leyen also touched on the thorny issue of the rule of law amid serious misgivings in Brussels over judicial reforms pushed through by Poland's right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) government.

- 'New opening'? -

The EU has launched unprecedented proceedings against Poland over "systemic threats" to the rule of law that could see its EU voting rights suspended.

"There are difficult issues we have to tackle like migration or the rule of law," von der Leyen said, calling for dialogue and mutual respect when addressing differences.

Warsaw was the third EU capital von der Leyen visited since being confirmed in her upcoming post a week ago.

"It was very important for me, after having been in Berlin and Paris, to come to Warsaw," von der Leyen said, also calling Poland an "important" regional EU member.

Morawiecki said he had hoped for a "new opening" between Warsaw and Brussels in the coming years, adding that his talks with von der Leyen would focus on which EU commissioner position would go to a Pole.

He later told reporters he had proposed Krzysztof Szczerski, the current chief of staff to President Andrzej Duda, as Poland's official candidate for the commission.

Morawiecki also said that Poland was primarily interested in posts focused on the economy or finance.

Swedish teen Thunberg slams 'hate and threats' as visit divides French parliament
Paris (AFP) July 23, 2019 - Swedish teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg on Tuesday lashed out at the abuse she receives for speaking out over global warming, after a visit to France's parliament provoked a backlash from right-wing deputies.

Some right-wing MPs boycotted the impassioned speech at the National Assembly by Thunberg, whose school strikes protesting government inaction over climate change helped sparked a worldwide movement.

But Thunberg, 16, took on her critics directly, saying all she and her young supporters were doing was highlighting the dramatic risks as shown by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

She accused politicians, business leaders and journalists of failing to communicate the scientific truth as shown in the latest IPCC report and leaving the burden to children.

"We become the bad guys who have to tell people these uncomfortable things because no one else wants to, or dares to," said Thunberg, speaking in English at one of the parliament's conference rooms.

"And just for quoting or acting on these numbers, these scientific facts, we receive unimaginable amounts of hate and threats. We are being mocked and lied about by members of parliament and journalists," she added.

- 'Saying the world is finished' -

The activist was invited by 162 MPs from a cross-party group concerned about climate change called "Let's Accelerate".

But many conservative figures on the French right have criticised the invitation, dismissing her as a "prophetess in shorts" and the "Justin Bieber of ecology" and refused to attend the speech.

Republicans MP Guillaume Larrive called on MPs to boycott her appearance, saying that to fight climate change "what we need is scientific progress and political courage, not apocalyptic gurus".

Julien Aubert, like Larrive a Republicans MP contending for leadership of the right-wing party, snapped: "Don't count on me to applaud a prophetess in shorts, a Nobel Prize for Fear."

Jordan Bardella, an MEP who is one of the rising stars of the far-right National Rally (RN), told France 2 television that "this dictatorship of perpetual emotion -- all the more when it relies on children -- is a new form of totalitarianism".

Bardella, 23, lashed out at "using children to show a fatalism to try and explain to all young people that the world is finished, that everything is going to catch fire and that nothing is possible."

- 'We are just children' -

Thunberg insisted that the politicians had the right to stay away from her speech but could no longer ignore the stark scientific truths.

"Some people have chosen not to come here today, some have chosen not to listen to us. And that is fine. We are, after all, just children!" said Thunberg, who was later due to be a guest in the main chamber.

"You don't have to listen to us. but you do have to listen to the science... and that is all we ask, to unite behind the science."

Thunberg, who on her Twitter feed describes herself as a "16 year old climate activist with Asperger" has long been the target of vicious attacks by social media trolls. But it is rare for politicians to join the fray.

"It is sad people are so desperate that they make things up," she told French youth news site Konbini ahead of her visit to parliament.

The criticism was also met with dismay by Green MPs and some from President Emmanuel Macron's Republic on the Move (LREM) majority.

"Larrive and Aubert are playing an internal game on the back of the battle against climate change," said Delphine Batho, head of the Generation Ecology party.

Her appearance came as France again swelters in a new heatwave with record high temperatures expected in Paris on Thursday.

Related Links
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20th-century warming 'unmatched' in 2,000 years
Paris (AFP) July 24, 2019
World temperatures rose faster in the late 20th century than at any other time in the last 2,000 years, according to research released Wednesday which experts said undermines climate deniers' questioning of mankind's role in global warming. As Europe sweltered in a second record-breaking heatwave in a month, the three peer-reviewed papers offered the most detailed overview of regional temperature trends dating back two millennia. Climate variability - the fluctuation of surface temperatures ov ... read more