The World Economic Forum annual meeting of business executives and political leaders held in Davos, Switzerland, is now underway. This year, nearly 3,000 participants from 117 countries are attending. The theme: Stakeholders for a Cohesive and Sustainable World.
One of the keynote speakers was Greta Thunberg who spoke on Tuesday, January 21. This is Greta’s second appearance at the conference. (You might well recall that it was her speech last year about our house being “on fire” that propelled her into the world spotlight.) I saw parts of her speech on Amy Goodman’s independent global news show, Democracy Now and was very moved — as I always am — whenever I listen to her. Greta spoke of the urgent need to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions immediately to have any chance of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
As she put it, and I heartily agree, offsets in the form of planting a few trees in Africa won’t cut it while at the same time “forests like the Amazon are being slaughtered at an infinitely higher rate.” Industrialized nations need to focus not so much on offsets as on totally eliminating greenhouse gas emissions.
Through all this, it’s ironic to observe the large number of participants who flew into Davos in their own private jets. So much for genuine concern about the impact they’re having on the environment.
Speaking of irony, one of the participants this year — one who never would have arrived in a private jet since he lives only a short train ride away — was Switzerland’s Bertrand Piccard. He’s the amazing adventurer who co-piloted the first solar-powered aircraft around the world in 2016 — 40,000 km without any fuel! At Davos, he pointed out how green initiatives are huge business opportunities.
Piccard’s Solar Impulse Foundation started the World Alliance for Efficient Solutions for that purpose. They’re choosing 1,000 solutions that protect the environment in a profitable way, and awarding them a special certification people can trust those initiatives are good for the economy and ecology. So far, they’ve identified 332 solutions worldwide, many of them in Canada.
With the World Economic Forum underway, I’m reminded of a survey done by the Canadian PR firm, Edelman, that I read about earlier. The survey, which was timed to come out before the conference, found that 56 percent of respondents no longer have confidence in capitalism primarily due to the negative effects of growing wealth inequality.
Oxfam has released an interesting report, too, just in time for the conference and along similar lines. Right now, the world’s 2,000+ billionaires, who include people like Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg (who’s worth US$80+ billion alone), have a collective wealth greater than the poorest half of the world, some 4.6 billion people.
This is not just unacceptable. It is criminal!
Given the World Economic Forum meeting is all about building a more cohesive and sustainable world, isn’t this the perfect opportunity to really push for green technologies and green collar jobs? The tandem step is to also ensure that the wealth generated from these new businesses is fairly distributed amongst everyone involved.
Daily atmospheric CO2 [Courtesy of CO2.Earth]
Latest daily total (Jan. 22, 2020): 414.07 ppm
One year ago (Jan. 22, 2019): 413.86 ppm
Subscribe to Tim Louis
Keep up to date Tim's latest posts.