This is what you don’t get in the mainstream press in the United States:

THE Queensland government, as host of last weekend’s G20 ­summit, is incensed over what it sees as an ill-informed, insulting speech from Barack Obama about climate change, the Great Barrier Reef and coal.

The idea that there might be an ounce of honesty in what Obama says or does is one of those myths that will not die. He has only one ambition, which is to do down our way of life and wreck it as comprehensively as he can. His mentor was Saul Alinski, his closest associate was the “weatherman” Bill Ayers, and he sat in the front pew of Reverend Wright’s church for twenty years. And if that doesn’t convince you, why don’t you just look at his economic, immigration, defence and foreign policies. Is it just chance, do you think, that every single thing he has done has made matters worse?

I only wish that being insulting and ill-informed was the worst of it. It is also interesting to see the issue of climate change and energy come up in this same story.

Tony Abbott told the G20 session that the “four-fifths” of the ­developed world that had used fossil fuels for economic growth could not now deny “the other fifth” ­access to coal to generate electricity for the hundred million people who were without it.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi picked up on the theme yesterday in his speech to federal parliament, calling for new-generation energy “that does not cause our glaciers to melt”. . . .

French President Francois Hollande, the host of the Paris climate change conference next year, spoke for eight minutes exclusively on climate change. Mr Modi talked of the need for access to electricity for the world’s poor.

Meanwhile the ill-informed President of the United States brought this message with him:

Mr Obama said on Saturday that climate change “here in ­Australia” means “longer droughts, more wildfires” and “the incredible natural glory of the Great Barrier Reef is threatened”.

He knows so little about so much.