Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison: Greta Thunberg Was Used to Arouse Fear

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison dismissed criticism of his country's climate policy yesterday and hinted that the young Swede, Greta Thunberg, was manipulated.

In a speech to the UN General Assembly, Morrison said Australia was fighting climate change and rejected "any insinuation to the contrary."

He assured that the Great Barrier Reef, part of UNESCO's World Heritage Site, is "healthy and sustainable", although at the end of August an Australian government agency announced it was in poor condition due to water warming, BTA recalls.

Morrison said his country is responsible for only 1.3 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and has adopted a climate plan worth $ 3.5 billion ($ 2.1 billion). He added that Australia adheres to the commitments it made in the Paris Climate Agreement to reduce its emissions by between 26 and 28 percent from 2005 levels by 2030.

The Australian prime minister has hinted that Thunberg, a Swedish teenager who has inspired hundreds of thousands of young people to ask global leaders for radical action to tackle climate change, has been used by some people to cause panic.

"I want children growing up in Australia to feel positive about their future, and I think it is important we give them that confidence that they will not only have a wonderful country and pristine environment to live in, that they will also have an economy to live in as well.

 "I don't want our children to have anxieties about these issues.", Morrison said.

According to the International Energy Agency, with its 25 million inhabitants and coal-dependent economy, Australia ranked second in 2016 in the world's largest pollutant per capita after Saudi Arabia.