German leader champions new tack on climate at Davos event

GENEVA (AP) — New German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called Wednesday for a “paradigm shift” in the way the world approaches climate policy, saying his country would leverage its presidency of the Group of Seven industrial nations this year to push for standards to fight global warming.

Discussions on energy use and ways to fight climate change have been a key theme this week at the World Economic Forum’s virtual meeting known as the “Davos Agenda” — a reference to the group's annual in-person meeting in the Swiss ski town of Davos that has been delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Unlike an event like the U.N. climate conference last year in Glasgow, Scotland, the Davos gathering is more of a discussion about big ideas — not a place where concrete agreements are made on how to act, something that has drawn criticism.

Scholz spoke Wednesday about issues like economic growth and Russia's military buildup along the Ukrainian border, while focusing on Germany's and the wider European Union's ambitions to fight climate change.

“Europe has decided to become the first carbon-neutral continent by 2050; Germany wants to reach that goal in 2045 already … a monumental task, but a task that we can and will master,” he said. “We will prove wrong those who are currently portraying our continent as a billiard ball in a great geo-economical game between China and the United States.”

He said Germany will use its G-7 presidency to “turn that group into the nucleus of an international climate club."

“What we want to achieve is a paradigm shift in international climate policy. We will no longer wait for the slowest and least ambitious," Scholz said. “Instead, we will lead by example, and we will turn climate action from a cost factor into competitive advantage by agreeing on joint...