Climate protesters say WEF meeting is a “corporate Disneyland”
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Summary
As the World Economic Forum (WEF) gets underway in Davos, protesters are gathering on the promenade to protest climate justice. They say that the WEF is little more than a corporate Disneyland, and that it's time to go back to basics and focus on the things we actually care about.
Transcript
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I'm coming to you from Davos, Switzerland, where the World Economic Forum's 2022 annual meeting
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is about to begin. The thousands of VIPs, business and corporate elites coming in from all over the
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world are descending on Davos, an alpine town in Switzerland, as we speak. But it isn't just them
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who are here. Also, dozens of protesters gathering under an Antifa flag, having an impromptu concert,
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steps from the promenade, which is where a lot of the action is taking place on the main drag of
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Davos. Now, unsurprisingly, a lot of them are here to protest what they say is climate justice. And
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it's odd because if you look at the Davos agenda, you can see that a great many sessions are
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specifically about climate, about going to net zero, transitioning away from oil and gas, paying
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attention to nature and conservation, all of these things. Well, oddly, the climate activists don't
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believe that any of it is genuine. Many of them believe that it is, as this one protester's sign
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said, no more than a corporate Disneyland. One woman I spoke to is part of a seniors group from
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Switzerland that actually walked to Davos, and they feel that everyone who flew here is a big old
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climate hypocrite. So what do you think of all of the people that fly in from around the world to
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talk about climate? Flying is some of the baddest, of course. And I would forbid in Europe, because we
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could go by train, we make better trains, who goes in the night, and then you are there in the morning.
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But, and I would give some contingents for other countries, for USA and so on, you know, not only for
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holiday in the Caribbean or so. But if you want to see the other cultures, especially for young people,
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I would say every five years, a contingent to go in another Earth's place, or in another culture, yeah.
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Now, do you believe that, because they talk about climate a lot at this conference, they have panels
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about it, discussions about it. Do you believe, as a climate activist, that they actually care about
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I don't think, no. I don't believe. They say, and they did standing ovation when Greta was talking,
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and said, you have to be afraid of, you must be afraid, the house is burning, she says. And the
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people find it's nice what she's saying, but they didn't change anything. And this is the great
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mistake, because the WEF is founded by making something better for the world. But we don't see
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anything better. Since this, all this year, I think it's about 50 years, the WEF is existing,
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Now, these comments were echoed by one of the organizers who took aim at what seems like good
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intentions by a lot of the people at Davos, but no real action. It's been going on for years,
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I'm an organizer of the STRIKE WEF here, so we did a protest hike from Kubelis to Davos
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over two days now, and we protested for climate justice.
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Now, I've seen the agenda for this week. They have a lot of discussion about climate,
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about net zero, about transitioning away from oil and gas. Are these things good in your idea?
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Yeah, I think the intention is good, but we, like, we demand a big change, because we think
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we have to take big steps to, like, tackle the climate crisis and the ecological crisis
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in general. And we don't really see that the people actually want to change some values
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in the economy, like, actually bring nature at the core and the humans and happiness, like,
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just that this is in the core of economy and everything evolves around it. We still see
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that profit and consumption and growth is really, really important. And also, like,
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being ecological is, like, yeah, kind of fits sometimes into it. And then greenwashing is also
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a big problem. So, like, we want that these people at the WEF really want to do something for the
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climate and not just, like, do greenwashing and that it's good for their image, really.
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Do you think capitalism is the problem then? Because there are a lot of companies here that have
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their big displays. Do you think capitalism itself is the problem?
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I think capitalism has some good things also. I'm not a full, like, enemy of capitalism. I think
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there's some good things. But I think there's also a lot of things that we have to change. And
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there's also a lot of, like, new systems that are really interesting, I think. And it's not about
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communism. It's like a whole different, like, with new ideas and new values. And
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like, just to think about, like, in the past 50 years, like, we really concentrated ourselves
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on the, um, how is it called in German? It's BP. The, like, how much, like, the money flow,
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kind of. Yeah. And also about growth and consumption. And I think it did a lot of good for humanity.
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Like, we have a lot more, like, the life standard became bigger, but it also destroyed nature a lot. And
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we're, have a climate crisis. And I think we have to rethink the values that we, we actually,
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like, our economy is based around and have to, like, make nature a priority. And I think this was
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missing in the last 100 years. And we really have to think about this.
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Now, not only are these climate justice protesters not convinced that climate is truly on the agenda
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of Davos, they actually believe it is, as this one chant in German suggested, a gathering of
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murderers. Or, to put another song to the mix, someone who said, to the tune of Yellow Submarine,
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this. What do we want? Climate justice. When do we want it? Now. We'll continue to cover the
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World Economic Forum Annual Meeting. For True North in Davos, I'm Andrew Lutton.