Macron declares climate change causes Islamic terrorism

There’s the absurdity of effete democracies in one sentence.

You’d think speed would be of the essence when you are facing a crazed dictator intent on nuclear Armageddon at your doorstep.

But, no, not in a universe where G20 leaders think climate change is more dangerous than Islamic terrorism or Kim Jong-un, and where Donald Trump is the biggest threat to world peace.

Our own ABC journalist Chris Uhlmann summed up the mindset with his celebrated report from Hamburg on the weekend, describing the US president at the global summit as an “uneasy, lonely, awkward figure” who was left “isolated and friendless” with “no desire and no capacity to lead the world”.

“Donald Trump has pressed fast forward on the decline of the United States as a global leader.”

Naturally this endeared Uhlmann to the world’s anti-Trump media.

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But Trump went to the G20 knowing elitist European leaders such as Angela Merkel and the toyboy leaders of France and Canada would sneer at him over his decision to pull out of the Paris climate accord fraud.

As if he cares. He has actual threats to deal with — North Korea for instance, or vanquishing Islamic terrorism.

Uhlmann’s thesis, shared by foreign affairs intelligentsia, is that Trump is a pariah over climate, and he missed the opportunity to show real leadership by organising a joint communiqué on North Korea from the G20. But if you actually want to deal with a threat rather than just look as if you’re dealing with it, joint communiqués are useless.

Is Kim Jong-un going to be frightened of a stern letter from Mutti Merkel?

The US is working on rather more effective measures behind the scenes, including pressuring China.

If Uhlmann had the impression that Trump was being isolated at the G20, it is only because Merkel, Europe’s biggest Trump basher, was a very rude host.

She has no claim to the moral high ground or superior statecraft. She created the migrant crisis in Europe when she opened the borders in 2015 to more than a million asylum seekers, most of whom are young Muslim men from Africa and the Middle East, who are not “Syrian refugees” who actually need help, but unwanted interlopers who will change the face of Europe.

Yet Merkel and the EU are threatening Poland, and other sensible Eastern European countries, if they don’t take in the hordes her foolishness has unleashed.

More than 10,000 migrants arrived in Italy alone last week. George Clooney is reportedly bringing his family home to the US because he fears for Italy’s future. Even Bill Gates has warned Europe is descending into anarchy.

Of course, this is another tough topic the G20 studiously avoided because this is what incompetent leaders do. Unable to solve the real problems that face them, they elevate relatively trivial issues to mammoth crises to divert attention from their incompetence. Their focus and commitment and hard work can’t be faulted, and they rely on teams of consultants to produce impressive looking reports and forecasts and summits and treaties, to give the appearance of momentum and achievement. Action on climate change could not be a more perfect vehicle, serving the bonus purposes of disproportionately damaging the US economy, and signalling moral virtue.

Like Kevin Rudd, most G20 leaders don’t have a clue about how to combat the big problems, such as Islamism, Iran, Kim Jong-un, or even the looming job-killing robot revolution. So they just redefine the “greatest moral challenge of our time” to this elaborate fantasy of dialling down the planet’s temperature.

Macron even went so ludicrously far as to claim at a press conference after the summit that terrorism is linked to climate change.

“Today, terrorism, the great imbalances in our world, what we are experiencing, is linked to the climatic imbalances that our international productive mode has generated…

“We cannot pretend to fight terrorism effectively if we do not have a resolute action against global warming.”

The rest of the world quite literally is fiddling while Rome burns.

So what did Trump do while the mean girls of the G20 were snubbing him and planning more climate parties?

He gave an inspired speech in Poland, defending Western civilisation and reasserting America’s commitment to NATO’s mutual defence strategy, having demanded freeloader nations like Germany pay their fair share.

He prepared for his first meeting with Vladimir Putin in that speech by calling on Russia to stop supporting hostile regimes, declaring Poland had his unwavering support; and he brought American and Polish soldiers on stage to illustrate the point. He also raised the threat of America exporting energy to Europe to cut its reliance on Russia.

And then the next day he sat down with Putin for a 30-minute meeting which stretched amicably to more than two hours, with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declaring it a success and a discussion of shared values.

While regarded as tough on Russia, Trump’s Warsaw speech was also designed to appeal to the social conservatism and rejection of identity politics that Putin has made the centrepiece of his reign.

Up until the age of Trump, Putin seemed to be doing a better job of defending Western civilisation than the West, with his propaganda masterstroke last May the staging of a classical concert in Palmyra, the ancient Syrian town his forces had just liberated from ISIS.

Oh, and Trump and Putin also brokered a ceasefire in Syria, as ISIS is progressively routed there under their joint commitment to combating the common enemy of Islamic terrorism.

Sensible leadership tries to find common ground rather than looking for new ways to make enemies.

But that’s not what you’ll hear on the ABC.