Potsdam Institute's Rahmstorf Re. Trump Policy: "We Should Assume Our Worst Fears Will Be Realized"

[hatrack]

Donald Trump's phone call with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull made front pages and news bulletins around Australia and the US, but it led news bulletins in Germany, too, where leading European climatologist Stefan Rahmstorf is based. "We are all very worried here," Rahmstorf, a professor at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, says. "We should assume our worst fears will be realised."

Such undiplomatic outbursts were standard for Trump before he became US President, but they now carry a manifest menace for the scientific community given his well-chronicled doubts about climate change being real. Among the climate-change deniers he relies on for advice are Scott Pruitt, Trump's pick to head the Environmental Protection Agency, and Rick Perry, his choice as energy secretary.

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Among the many instances of extreme weather in the past year – 2016, the hottest year on record, had many – the remarkable temperatures monitored over the Arctic have been standouts. This coming week, temperatures over the far north are projected to be as much as 20 degrees above normal.

In Australia, Trump's anti-climate tilt has been echoed with relish by right-wing politicians, such as One Nation and South Australian Liberal senator Cory Bernardi. They have called on the Turnbull government to abandon the Paris agreement in which Australia has pledged to cut 2005-level emissions by as much as 28 per cent by 2030. Australia should also scrap the 2020 Renewable Energy Target in favour of subsidies for new coal-fired power stations, they say. Signs Turnbull is willing to be swayed include comments at last week's National Press Club in favour of so-called "clean coal", and his reported appointment of Minerals Council veteran Sid Marris to be his climate and energy policy advisor.

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http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/we-should-assume-our-worst-fears-will-be-realised-climate-scientist-on-donald-trump-20170202-gu4f3k.html

[Canoe52]

1. I'm 64 and I'm getting the feeling I might be here to see the worst.