Donald Trump has launched a broadside against the UK’s green energy policies and claimed that mass migration has rendered Europe “unrecognisable”. Speaking to reporters at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Mr Trump warned that “between immigration and energy – if they don’t change, bad things will happen to them”.
During his address, he specifically targeted Sir Keir Starmer’s stance on North Sea oil and gas. Mr Trump, a vocal critic of what he labels the green energy “scam”, contended that the UK Government has made it “impossible” for oil companies to develop North Sea reserves. He said the UK produces just one-third of the energy it did in 1999, despite sitting on “one of the greatest reserves anywhere in the world”.
Greenpeace UK’s Lily-Rose Ellis said, “Trump’s knowledge of North Sea oil and gas amounts to a tottering pile of lies” and “The UK Government can safely ignore advice from a climate denier bankrolled by the fossil fuel industry”. Friends of the Earth’s Mike Childs added: “The only people who benefit from backtracking on climate action are the polluters, billionaires and powerful vested interests profiting from fossil fuels.”
In an occasionally rambling address, Mr Trump highlighted achievements he claimed to have made since returning to the White House. He was scathing about Europe, deepening transatlantic divides over trade and his goal of taking over Greenland. He told the audience that European countries were importing “entirely different populations from far away lands” and that certain places are “not even recognisable, frankly, anymore”.
