The Czech premier, whose country depends on nuclear energy and coal, said Monday (16 March) the European Union should ditch its landmark green law seeking carbon neutrality as it battles the novel coronavirus.
“Europe should forget about the Green Deal now and focus on the coronavirus instead,” Prime Minister Andrej Babiš told reporters, without explaining how the two are connected.
“Europe is now the biggest epicenter of the coronavirus in the world,” the billionaire populist added.
The EU unveiled a draft of the Green Deal earlier this month, mandating members to achieve net-zero greenhouse emissions by 2050.
But ex-communist EU members like the Czech Republic have announced much less ambitious plans as their energy sectors are still largely dependent on coal.
The Czech Republic has registered 344 cases of COVID-19, including three recovered patients. No one has died of the disease in the country of around 11 million people.
The Czech Republic recently closed its borders as well as schools, most shops, and cultural facilities and restricted free movement.
Earlier Monday, the government sent a special military plane to China to collect coronavirus test kits, and Babiš said another seven planes should follow suit.
He praised China for its handling of the contagion.
“Now that the epidemic is nearly over in China, the country is once again the biggest producer of medical material and the entire planet is going shopping in China,” said Babiš.
“We really have a lot to learn from China.”
h/t Dave R.
Read more at EurActiv
They should ditch this nonsense regardless of COVID-19. It’s a completely surreal pipe-dream anyway, unless everybody is fine with getting thrown back into the stone age.
China has cursed us with another of their numerous contagions. I wouldn’t be so quick to thank them for the test kits. It smells like a new business model (scam) to me. They’ve been infecting computers, extorting ransoms from the owners . Poisoning our pets with melamine. Selling us Christmas toys with leaded paint. There’s a litany of Mob behaviour from Beijing. Time to cut ties.
“Babiš told reporters, without explaining how the two are connected.” I assume he didn’t say how they were connected because it is obvious. Climate change has been the primary focus for years and one criticism is it has drawn attention from valid issues. Now something has come along that takes the focus away from the climate change fraud.
Not only do they need to focus on the Wuhan virus but once it is under control the focus should be on rebuilding the economies that have been severely disrupted by the virus spread–Italy especially hard hit. Anything related to the so called “Green Deal” needs to be abandoned because the well being of their citizens is (and always should have been) much more important than any CO2 levels. But the elite are a stubborn bunch since rising costs for everything means nothing to them.
Global Warming/Climate Change the biggist scam in the history of all Mankind there are bigger more real threats to America then the fake crisis of Global Warming/Climate Change