"Australian coal is, environmentally, significantly more efficient than coal that is produced and used in other parts of the world."

That was the claim from Australian finance minister, Mathias Cormann, during his interview with CGTN Europe's Jamie Owen at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. You can read his full interview in today's newsletter. 

Also in Davos, our Facebook Live breakdown of day two proved popular. You can catch up here, and remember to tune in tonight for day three highlights. 

Before we move on from WEF news, it emerged today that French finance minister Bruno Le Maire and his U.S. counterpart Steven Mnuchin came to an agreement on digital taxation. 

Away from Davos, the major global story this week has been the outbreak of coronavirus in Wuhan, China. Cases have been reported in at least 10 countries and regions and the contagion has begun to affect global business. Chinese stocks fell 3 percent and the releases of several Chinese films have been delayed, as Beijing authorities cancel large-scale events to celebrate Chinese New Year. 

Finally, don't forget to sign up here to get Global Business Daily direct to your inbox each weekday. 

Happy reading,

Patrick Atack
Digital business correspondent 
 

France and the U.S. have struck a truce on digital taxation, making a global deal far more likely. Steven Mnuchin and Bruno Le Maire, the nation's finance ministers, met on the sidelines of the WEF to thrash out the deal.

UK business minister Andrea Leadsom announced that Britain will impose a similar digital service tax on Amazon, Facebook, and Google – alongside its aim to strike a trade deal with the U.S. post-Brexit. 

Seven Chinese-produced movies that were poised to debut during the Spring Festival holiday have all postponed release dates due to the coronavirus outbreak.

The European Central Bank said its rates will remain unchanged after Christine Lagarde took over from Mario Draghi in November. Lagarde also announced a "strategic review" – the ECB's first such audit in 16 years. 

Huawei has announced the postponement of a major developers' conference because of safety precautions around the coronavirus outbreak. The event, which was due to be held in Shenzhen, China, has been pushed back to March. 
 

The UK's Financial Conduct Authority renewed its Brexit warning, saying firms must prepare for "a range of scenarios... at the end of 2020."  
 

Asian stocks tumbled as investors' nerves began to show over the coronavirus outbreak. Chinese shares suffered a steep 3 percent loss – the largest single-day slide since US president Donald Trump threatened to impose tariffs on Chinese goods. 
 

Australian finance minister Mathias Cormann spoke to Jamie Owen in Davos, with climate change and the recent Australian wildfires on the minds of WEF delegates. 


JO:  Are these wildfires sign of political failure? 

MC: This is not about politics for us. We are dealing with a very serious and grave emergency and we are focused on the emergency response when the fires continue burning.

The prime minister [Scott Morrison] has led an unprecedented, national emergency response effort. And, of course, we've already started, where that can be done, with the bushfire recovery process, having allocated about $2 billion dollars to that process.

There are political conversations, of course, in relation to how our emergency response can be further improved into the future. There's no doubt that, of course, climate change has led to increased intensity of these sorts of fires.

And, contrary to what some people seem to believe in this forum, Australia is absolutely committed to effective action on climate change. We are pursuing appropriately ambitious emissions-reduction targets. So we are one of only a handful of countries that will not just meet, but beat, our emissions-reduction targets agreed to in Kyoto for 2020.

We will beat them by more than four million tons of CO2 and, indeed, we are on track to meet and beat our emissions-reduction targets agreed to in Paris.

JO: That may be so. Your prime minister, however, has been booed in the streets. He's a political liability, isn't he? 

MC: Not at all. Our prime minister is providing very strong leadership through what is obviously a national emergency and, during these sorts of emergencies, in the heat of the moment, of course there is a lot of emotion. And we understand that. And we will continue to work through these things. 


JO: Doesn't Australia have to turn its back on coal? 

MC: I disagree. Australian coal is, environmentally, significantly more efficient than coal that is produced and used in other parts of the world.

Australian black coal has got less ash content, less moisture content, higher energy intensity.

And, you know, countries like India have made very clear that they will need to continue to rely on coal to provide electricity to their people for the foreseeable future.

If we don't provide Australian coal, which is cleaner, comparatively cleaner than countries like India and others, we rely on comparatively dirty coal. And that will actually make the situation for the global environment worse.

We are actually, with Australian black coal through this transition period, able to help reduce global emissions, which otherwise would be higher.