The World Economic Forum thinks there is a correlation between democratic freedom and commitment to renewable energy. But their green metric gives coal burning China a pass, and their freedom metric puts the USA behind Australia, Europe and Argentina.
The colour of democracy is green: Why a clean energy transition is also vital to safeguarding liberty
Jul 11, 2022
Edward B Barbier
University Distinguished Professor, Department of Economics, Colorado State UniversityClimate change and the decline of democracy are two global crises that have come to a head in recent years.
Transitioning to green energy is key to both tackling climate change and creating sustainable economies.
Collective action on a green transition is thereby not only good for the climate but also vital for protecting democracy.
Two global crises have come to a head – climate change and the decline of democracy.
If global warming is to be kept below 1.5 oC, the world must act now to reduce carbon emissions. Achieving this objective requires substantially lowering fossil fuel use through a clean energy transition.
For the past 15 years, democracy has been in decline worldwide. To protect and promote freedom, leading democracies must strengthen their economies and safeguard liberty.
These two aims are not mutually exclusive but complementary. Reducing reliance on fossil fuels and transitioning to low-carbon alternatives also make democratic economies more sustainable. Major democracies should work together to achieve these two goals.
…
The leading democracies of the G20 should collectively commit to phasing out cost and tax breaks for the production and consumption of fossil fuels. They should also phase in more efficient pricing of fossil fuels through taxes or tradable permits to cover the costs of local air pollution, global warming, and other economic damages.
…
Read more: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/07/colour-of-democracy-clean-energy-transition/
WEF founder Klaus Schwab was born in NAZI Germany in 1938.
I’m not sure how imposing a new regime of trading permits and forcibly phasing out cheap energy equates to democracy.
I also question giving a high green score to China, which burns more coal than anyone, or a high freedom score to Canada, where police horsemen were filmed trampling unarmed protestors last February, and Australia, where rubber bullets were fired at unarmed protestors in 2021.
The lower freedom score for the USA is suspect in my opinion. In the USA people are protected by a strict bill of rights, including the right to free speech, and the right to bear arms for self defence. Not so much in countries like Canada and Australia. People in the USA also get to vote for town sheriffs, attorney generals and other important executive positions which are appointed jobs in most other countries.
Australia and Canada scoring top marks for freedom is questionable. Australia is not as repressive as countries like China, but Australia has no bill of rights, so the treatment of citizens is at the whim of politicians – as we discovered during the 2021 protests. Canada has a bill of rights, but going by recent treatment of protestors in Canada I’m guessing the Canadian bill of rights is more of a guideline than an inalienable guarantee.
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Lack of freedom is one state of emergency away.
In the Commonwealth of Australia, Federation of States, state of emergency is State Parliament legislation and State Government imposed and enforced.
And Co2 Greened an area x2 the size of the continental united states… the only thing green in the ‘green movement’ is lining their pockets.
It’s no surprise – the rise in climate alarmism IS the decline in democracy. You cannot have a healthy democracy when climate activists demand authoritarian powers to combat the delusion.
R. Page— Au Contraire Democracy is Mob Rule, therefore climate alarmism is Democracy at work. Our Founding Fathers in the USA established a Constitutional Representative Republic. If you don’t understand the difference either you are a foreigner, or politically misinformed.
I’m a foreigner and quite obviously don’t have your precise first-hand experience of, what did you call it again, a Constitutional Representative Republic – which does a good job of describing the country but not the form of governance. I think you might be surprised to find that your Constitutional Representative Republic uses a form of Representative Democracy where they elect those citizens chosen to represent the will of the whole adult population of the country. If it shifts to some form of authoritarian state, you be sure to let me know, ok?
Richard Page:
Because of an fraudulent election the authoritarian state is being dismantled. Essentially throwing the baby out with the bathwater .The company, the United States of America, Inc., established in 1871 is now bankrupt. The FED exists in name only being part of the US Treasury by prior administration executive order. Watch what will happen in the near future as the USA returns to the Founding Fathers ( mostly Brits) vision of our Constitutional Representative Republic.The process is nearing completion. My advice to you and others— buy hard assets including gold & silver. Your currency and others will become worthless.
are we going back to blaming children for the sins of their parents? And if not why mention that Klaus Schwab was born in Germany in 1938?
As for Americans being protected by the bill of rights that depends more on your ability to pay for a lawyer than anything else. Joseph Heller’s line that “Yossarian was jepordising his tradition rights of freedom and independence by daring to exercise them” seems truer now than when it was written.
“Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, created the Forum of Young Global Leaders in 2004 to help the world meet increasingly complex and interdependent problems. His vision was to create a proactive multistakeholder community of the world’s next-generation leaders to inform and influence decision-making and mobilize transformation.
Through the Forum of Young Global Leaders, Klaus Schwab envisioned facilitating earnest dialogue and friendships across cultures to bridge divides, fostering fresh thinking and dynamic new ways of collaboration to shape a more positive, peaceful and prosperous society.”
WEF
and so many of our leaders ARE schwabs young leaders mobs trulya dope ,ardern, mant more. ardern bolted to aus to sweet talk Albo re climate cons and is pushing to allow NONcitizen Kiwiws to Vote in Aus!!
and albos not said outright NO
Can ozspeaksclearly translate this mumbo jumbo?
I’m not sure about the above sample, but it usually resolves to US bad, socialism good.
Brevity is generally a good thing, however punctuation and complete sentences are more likely to make the point more clearly. Riddles have their place, but are not always useful.
WEF raising the next generation of central planners. WEF is interventionistic. They shape and state the problems and put the right people together to solve them. When did we need WEF to tell us our problems and what the solutions are. Fishy to the max. Smells like a gigantic power grab.
I agree with you on the Nazi jibe
However, we should acknowledge the criticisms heaped on Klaus Schwab and the WEF
because schwab IS carrying the ideology of state controls over peoples live to the global scale just like he was raised in
Fool. Who pays you to waste our time here? Big Green?
Schwab’s parentage is not the point. The fact is, he was a child of Nazism and now uses his enormous power and influence to act on his ingrained totalitarian principles.
As for American jurisprudence, Izaak, you apparently have never been part of a jury trial in the U.S. Yes, there are disparities, but anyone in America (except political targets of public vendettas) can have a fair hearing and defense before his peers. Thugs and criminals are put in jail by juries selected from among their own neighbors after a careful consideration of the facts. Furthermore, with activist judges and prosecutors, we are currently on a rapid path to pardoning all but the most hardened, egregious criminals, sending waves of the lawless back out onto the streets and empowering others to commit crimes with no guilt and no fear of justice.
The bigger government gets, and the more laws there are, the more you need lawyers in order to do anything.
Izaak, like our other socialists is always demanding bigger government and more regulations, yet he seems to feel that the natural result of these trends is a bad thing.
Izaak, have you ever been to the US? You don’t seem to know much about it.
The color of “green” is red.
Yes, definitely.
Go woke, go broke. Go green, go without.
ROFL did it occur to the genius that it was the greentard policies that lead to the decline of democracies. His answer do more 🙂
“… but Australia has no bill of rights….”
Reading that made my blood run cold. I always thought Australia was rather like a second USA as far as freedom goes. To discover otherwise is frightening.
Those documents are meaningless in the face of governments and bureaucrats, no matter the country. Australia runs on ‘a fair go’ principle. A little vague but seemingly works in most cases.
Yep, NZ has a bill of rights, but it wasn’t worth the paper it was written on when our government decided to lock us all down.
Here’s some of what it has to say…
“Everyone lawfully in New Zealand has the right to freedom of movement and residence in New Zealand.
(2)
Every New Zealand citizen has the right to enter New Zealand.
(3)
Everyone has the right to leave New Zealand.
”
NZers did _not_ have freedom of movement (with the exception of gang members)
NZers were prevented from returning to NZ and from leaving (not that anybody would have taken us).
I really had no idea just how ‘free’ NZers were until a couple of years ago.
If the paper is used judiciously it can minimise skid marks.
Chris,
You are forgetting section 5 “Subject to section 4, the rights and freedoms contained in this Bill of Rights may be subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.”
And during a pandemic enforcing a lockdown is a reasonable limit to freedom of movement in order to save lives. And was upheld as such by the supreme court.
limiting people to house arrest pretty much and a 5km limit to walk etc wasnt reasonable or fair
Call quarantine of the healthy what it is, “tyranny.”
And with Covid mutating and rising infections again it would seem freedom of movement has suddenly taken precedence? Can I suggest no more appetite for lockdowns and helicopter money from all those eggsperts as the costs are now very apparent.
I did not down vote you for this comment, which I find to be ignorant in the extreme. But I should have. One would think after 2+ years that you “lock downs save lives” folks would have had the decency to investigate the efficacy of your ex cathedra pronouncements and also evaluate the collateral damage. Of course you don’t as it wouldn’t support your beliefs. Can’t learn.
Translation, if the government wants to take away your rights, nothing in the constitution will prevent it.
I think the 2nd Amendment effectively curtails a complete authoritarian takeover in the US.
And, luckily, due to the election of TRUMP!, the US may be returning to a constitutional basis for the “limited” nature of the federal government.
I am hoping that the continued extreme actions of the left in attempting to “overturn” SCOTUS decisions by executive orders and bureaucratic dictates will empower the originalists on the court to overturn the 1930’s ruling expanding the “commerce clause” to include anything statists want it to mean.
Then courts gave the federal government “powers” not given to it by the constitution, only the SCOTUS, or a convention of the states, can take those powers away.
I vote for a convention of the states.
That’s the idea.
used to, hasnt actually done so since maybe the 40s
I know little about Australia. However I think its legal system, like that of other former UK colonial countries, is based on English Common Law. This does put limits on arbitrary government conduct towards citizens, albeit not encoded in any one document, but the result of decisions on a case by case basis.
It shouldn’t necessarily make your blood run cold. Until very recently the UK was in a similar position, no explicit charter of rights, but a series of statutes and decisions, including the Bill of Rights of 1688, which gave a patchwork of rights.
I don’t know how much of British statutory law carried over to Australia at independence – whether for instance the 1688 Bill of Rights is carried over. Be interested to hear from someone better informed.
what passes for a constitution is all for the rulers and govt(read UK controllers priorly) and sweet fanny adams for personal rights or freedoms. hell we even have bans on certain groups associating like meeting up at homes pubs or other places under guise of anti biker gang laws. all to easy to add/change that any time they choose to
US is the only country that acknowledges our rights preceed government. These are often call “God-given” rights. In all others, rights are granted by government. Consider the difference.
Hmm no. Considering that France used almost exactly the same framework for the declaration of rights of man and the citizen (still used today by France and former French colonies) as the US constitution (no coincidence – both authors knew each other and collaborated on both) then there are other countries that do the same.
“If global warming is to be kept below 1.5 C, the world must act now to reduce carbon emissions”
I’m old enough to remember when they said, “if we don’t act by year 2000, it will be too late.” What I don’t understand is why my brothers, sisters, and father don’t recall this…or at least show the slightest bit of skepticism as a result.
Sydney Opera House predicted to go under water from ocean rising by 2000.
And as the fourth flood crisis since 2020 is being dealt with a reminder that climate change was by now to have reduced rainfall and dams would never fill again.
The dire predictions of the alarmists are always wrong.
This should tell a reasonable person something.
Too bad most people are not reasonable…
I think you have it backwards. I think most people don’t pay that much attention to the dire predictions of alarmists.
The Warmongers have been saying the same thing for the last 50 years, and let’s not forget the scare stories from the start of the 20th Century
I see the correlation differently…..those countries at the right of the graph are throwing taxpayer money to those on the left side……particularly China.
Welcome to the Holocene Inter-Glacial, peeps! A shame it’s not as warm as the previous four Inter-Glacials dating back over half a million years!!! It’s amazing what temperature makes people do, say, think, etc! Not heard anything about those awful wildfires in Australia, & America a while back, have they determined who had the box of matches???
matches and lightning strikes in dry storms were heavily to blame. of course that wont be mentioned it isnt on their agenda
An arbitrary freedom score is compared with an arbitrary green score hence the trendline is meaningless.
I remember a “survey” that claimed to show which cities were the safest. Because actually trying to dig up and compare statistics on different types of crime was “difficult”, the authors decided to just compare police budgets per capita. Under the theory that a city that spends more on cops, must be safer than one that spends less.
It cracks me up when they label their side “Green” when more CO2 means more green and their plans will reduce green.
We need to use that line more often!
Even a country with zero Freedom Score will still have 30 Green Score.
Considering what the WEF says on their websites and openly in their speeches, I would say that the less freedom a country has, the higher their green score.
Another ‘distinguished’ professor somewhere.
But distinction, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Or is it the brain?
In any case, it’s absent from mine.
The nation of Sri Lanka has an almost perfect ESG rating of 98.1 on a scale of 100, according to WorldEconomics.com.
And look what that got them.
The only green that democracy really thrives on is money.
Money and a Free Market.
Aus feels a lot more like democracy in name only and has done for a looong time. we have no rights, we have priveleges like in colonial times at the whim of the govt ie landed gentry and political appointees. you cant scratch your butt even on land you own without some pratt in powers approval, and at a cost of course. for over regulation wed be on par with china almost
maybe worse. and state leaders like AndroOZE in Vic think being like China would be a good thing pop controls wise, hell we are more than 3/4 there anyway
The Chicoms must be salivating at the weakness and delusion shown by Western leaders. Like taking candy from a baby. Right, Xi?
We make it too easy for the bad guys.
Is Donald Trump the only guy in the world who sees the situation clearly?
No, probably not, but he’s the only politician who says it out loud.
The world needs Trump’s leadership back. He sees the Big Picture and the dangers posed by the Bad Guys, and can take the world to a much better place. The Left is lost and foundering in delusion. The Left’s stanglehold on power must be broken or we are all going off the cliff with these fools.
From the article: “The World Economic Forum thinks there is a correlation between democratic freedom and commitment to renewable energy.”
Yes, there is a correlation: All the democratic nations have a radical Leftwing Media that promotes renewable energy as the answer to all our problems.
The Democratic populations are being propagandized by their partisan, political Media.
From the article: “Transitioning to green energy is key to both tackling climate change and creating sustainable economies.”
Well, we are screwed then, aren’t we, since green energy will not sustain our economies. This guy is living in a dreamworld.
From the article: “Australia and Canada scoring top marks for freedom is questionable.”
Isn’t that the truth! Trudeau has a lot of Castro coming out in him. He is definitely dictator material. You guys need to get him out of power as soon as possible if you value your personal freedoms. The guy is a natural-born tyrant.
And I was pretty shocked at some of the things politicians imposed on Australian citizens over the China virus. Here in the U.S., in my State, I was never on any lockdown of any kind and the State government never issued a mask mandate. And we did just fine with the China virus, or at least as good as others who took more drastic actions.
Petty dictators come out of the wordwork in such situations. The People’s enemies have revealed themselves with their actions. Vote their butts out of office at the next opportunity.
Sounds like Florida to me. But we have an advantage over most states, being surrounded by lots of ocean water and with only one somewhat overlong isolated border with other states.
I referenced an article by Tony Heller about WEF’s role in the Sri Lanka disaster.
WEF had an article by PM Wickremesinghe- This is how I will make Sri Lanka Rich by 2025
(Aug 29, 2018)- that they’ve “disappeared”. Luckily, the Sunday Times (of Sri Lanka)
ran the same article (9/2/18, which I saved). Both the search result to find the
article & the WEF link say “we will make” vs the “I will make” in the actual article
implies to both searchers & their readers ownership in the PMs work which is now
a total disaster. Also @ur momisugly the end of the Times article, it states this: “(Prime
Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe will be participating in the World Economic Forum on
ASEAN in Ha Noi, Viet Nam from Sept 11-13.) Courtesy the World Economic Forum”.
It’s obvious they wanted to remove any implications of their role in this tragedy
& “disappeared” it on the WEF website ASAP, but there are obvious links to their
involvement on the Times page.
Lesson learned: If you find any article, graphic, … on a potential perp’s web site,
you may want to save it as it could get “disappeared” if that info will implicate
them in their role in any future disasters that occur or positions on policies that
change.
Note: The PM presented his 2025 Vision at the 2018 WEF.
https://realclimatescience.com/2022/07/the-wef-plan-for-sri-lanka/
(The graphic below is the beginning of the WEF article Tony cited.)
https://www.sundaytimes.lk/180902/news/pm-this-is-how-i-will-make-my-country-rich-by-2025-309660.html
After the “I own nothing and I’m happy” WEF piece became well-known, it too got disappeared. One week it was on WEF website and widely circulated, the next it was gone off the internet everywhere but Forbes. (Then the BBC ran an article saying the piece never existed and if you thought it did you were deluded; very bizarre.) Chilling how coordinated it all was.
Canada has the “notwithstanding” clause in their Constitution, which is a specific cutout of rights.
The issue in the US is getting the government to follow unfavorable court decisions. Biden et al lost in West Virginia v EPA, but it trying to do Obama’s Clean Power Plan anyway. That says nothing about Kochul and Newsom’s defiance of NYSRPA v Bruen, on carrying guns.
The only real hope is that a certain party loses big in the midterms.
I assume you mean ‘bigly’. 😃
Regardless of the midterm election outcome, I think we’ll soon see more defiance of Federal over reach at the state level. While NY and CA are clearly in league with the Federal government to subvert the rights and well being of their own citizens, the emerging disparity of results will only accelerate the emergence of state nullification of unjust Federal edicts, or what Jefferson referred to as ‘the rightful remedy’ against Federal tyranny.
The writer has it entirely backwards. He misses the fact that loss of democracy (whatever that means to him) or better yet freedom and liberty and the climate policy crisis are inversely proportional. He talks about so-called “democracy,” but then reverses himself and urges collective action, the very antithesis of freedom and liberty. To satisfy the lunatic fringe regressives, the developed nations are intentionally snatching away freedoms and their national identities to force a transition to costly, parasitic and damaging “renewable energy” and fanciful green ideas. If their populations go along with this or even vote for it, then they have only themselves to blame, although they are deceived at every turn by “scientists,” “experts,” the media, NGOs, elected politicians and government bureaucrats.
The chart mainly provides a snapshot illustrating what was achieved historically by adherence to freedom, markets and enterprise, while falsely giving “green cred” to China. China is still at least a generation behind on environmental quality and far behind others in “freedoms.” Were the chart to show the trajectories of the individual countries, it would show that green ascendency begets loss of freedom. Go Woke, Go Broke.
Dan Bongino links the use of disinformation by globalist Great Reset libs (Scary Poppins-
Disinformation Minister, Klaus Schwab (initiative for public & private cooperation to
solve global problems), & ESG promoter Blackrock) to bypass Constitutional rights.
(beginning @ur momisugly 36:15)
https://bongino.com/ep-1805-devastating-new-leak-means-trouble-for-joe
WSJ- Andy Kessler- “The Many Reasons ESG Is a Loser”
(only the first part of his WSJ article)
https://www.andykessler.com/andy_kessler/2022/07/wsj-esg-investing-business-model.html
“Reducing reliance on fossil fuels and transitioning to low-carbon alternatives also make democratic economies more sustainable.”
You have to wonder about the mental state of these commentators. Europe is becoming a basket case and other western countries are not far behind, all because of their drive to net zero. In Sri Lanka, people are literally dying in the streets after taking the advice from the Glasgow climate summit to ban nitrogen fertiliser.
Now add dimensions for rate of losing freedom and losing prosperity and rate of loss of debate entry and agenda news bias conformity.
What a liar, I am ashamed to admit I am an alumnus of the same university from which this clown hails.