Juno News - Davos Day 4 ｜ Online censorship finds a home at WEF

00:00:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:00:30.000 Thank you.

00:01:00.000 Welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.

00:01:16.960 This is The Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.

00:01:20.720 Hello and welcome to you all.

00:01:28.320 This is day four of the World Economic Forum's 2024 Annual Meeting in Davos.

00:01:34.160 It's day four of five, but as far as these live broadcasts from the Alps,

00:01:38.840 this is our last of the week.

00:01:41.240 We've been covering all week long the goings-on of the rich and powerful

00:01:46.260 and oftentimes a little bit snobby world elites.

00:01:49.960 we've been doing it because these people are not used to fielding questions from pretty much anyone

00:01:54.580 except fawning and adoring fans. So we've been doing it, but also trying to make sure we can

00:02:00.080 really package it all together and talk about the bigger picture in these live shows. So

00:02:04.800 the coverage will continue, but the Andrew Lawton show will not after tonight. So we'll try to make

00:02:09.000 the most of it and perhaps even have a little bit of fun along the way if it's possible.

00:02:13.980 Well, we're talking about all of these things that are happening, which quite frankly are not

00:02:19.020 really things that we should be laughing about or taking not seriously. But as you know, I try to

00:02:25.360 take the serious in a way that has a bit of humor injected, because that's the only way to tolerate

00:02:30.160 it. But turning that into something that we could perhaps say is rising to the occasion, whatever

00:02:36.520 that means. I'm starting to talk like all these elites in platitudes and whatnot. But here's the

00:02:41.500 thing. A couple of housekeeping items first. One literally, because we have had this like weird

00:02:46.500 fake steam fireplace on in the background for the last few days. We had it ready to go. And then

00:02:53.800 Sean came into the room, like, I don't know, like 20 minutes ago. And the second he opened the door,

00:02:59.480 the fire went out. So, and he's not like a particularly cold presence. He's a very lovely

00:03:04.120 person. So I wanted to blame him, but I'm not sure if I can. So suffice it to say, if you were

00:03:09.200 tuning in just for the fake fireplace, you were sorely disappointed, but you can rewatch episodes

00:03:13.620 one through three this week. One thing I wanted to get to first and foremost was that I did not

00:03:20.420 manage to find Christian Freeland, the Deputy Prime Minister, wandering the streets of Davos

00:03:26.040 either yesterday or today. Her official itinerary said yesterday she was in private meetings all day

00:03:32.300 with other world leaders and whatnot. And then today she had a panel discussion that she was

00:03:37.740 participating in on trade and was supposedly in private meetings for the rest of the day.

00:03:43.260 We were hoping that maybe she would walk in and out of the public entrance and not the one that

00:03:48.180 you can get driven in through secretly and dropped off past security so you don't have to mingle with

00:03:54.080 the plebs. But it seems like she may have taken that option. Or in the 10 minutes that I wasn't

00:04:00.360 there, perhaps she waited for that to pounce. But nevertheless, we can weigh in on the comments she

00:04:06.660 said on the record on this panel discussion in a little bit. But I want to begin by talking about

00:04:12.220 freedom of speech. Now, I've said in the past, this is my hill to die on. Freedom of speech is

00:04:17.720 the most important right and freedom we have. It is the one, I'm paraphrasing someone who is

00:04:24.000 paraphrasing someone, and I don't even know at this point who the original thinker was of this,

00:04:28.380 but it wasn't me. The line that I heard, which I quite enjoyed, was that the reason freedom of

00:04:34.020 speech is the most important freedom is because if you were to take away every other right and

00:04:39.220 freedom we have, except one, freedom of speech. You could use your freedom of speech to win back

00:04:45.340 all of the others. And it's, I think, a very romantic and idealistic, but honest way of

00:04:51.640 looking at why this freedom is so important. Because if you lose the freedom to speak,

00:04:55.980 you lose the freedom to think. If you lose those freedoms, you lose the ability to pretty much

00:05:00.540 advocate for any change on anything else in society. So I was, of course, intrigued when

00:05:06.140 freedom of expression ended up once again on the radar of the people at Davos. Now it's not perhaps

00:05:12.700 a sexy item to them as say the need to transition away from oil and gas is or the need to switch to

00:05:19.380 sustainable this and that but it is still one that they like to talk about and when all of these

00:05:23.940 leaders are coming together by their own admission because they want to swap ideas and find best

00:05:28.660 practices and follow the commitments and all of that that Klaus Schwab was asking them for on

00:05:33.720 monday it's important to hear what they have to say about freedom of expression now one of the

00:05:39.880 things i've been doing this week is going back into the archives and talking about ideas that

00:05:45.320 have really driven i think why there has been so much frustration with the world economic forum's

00:05:50.040 agenda and when possible putting even some older comments to people that have never really had to

00:05:55.960 answer for them and one of those was in may of 2022 my first time covering the world economic

00:06:02.040 Forum's annual meeting. Julie Inman-Grant, who is Australia's eSafety Commissioner,

00:06:08.200 was talking about freedom in the context of the internet, rights in the context of the internet.

00:06:15.480 And I'll explain a little bit about who Julie Inman-Grant is in the moment, but I first want

00:06:19.640 to jog your memory about what it is she said. We are finding ourselves in a place where we have

00:06:27.160 increasing polarization everywhere and everything feels binary when it doesn't need to be so

00:06:33.320 i think we're going to have to think about a recalibration of a whole range of human rights

00:06:37.160 that are playing out online you know from freedom of speech to the freedom to you know to be free

00:06:42.840 from online violence or the right of data protection to the right to child dignity

00:06:49.160 that was the call that she made in 2022 the need to have a recalibration of freedom of speech now

00:06:58.460 as i joked at the time and perhaps have since i'm all for a recalibration as well to reset make sure

00:07:03.120 we start from scratch and have freedom of speech but she meant it i suspected in a different way

00:07:08.580 and if you want to listen to why this is important to take note of here listen to how she talks about

00:07:15.000 the tech marketplace of ideas, of how she talks about people being able to use

00:07:19.580 tech platforms like X, formerly Twitter, in 2024. This is a presentation she gave

00:07:26.120 on a World Economic Forum panel yesterday. We've just issued one against X Corp around

00:07:33.140 online hate where we were able to really get a sense of the extent to which they cut their

00:07:38.840 safety engineers by 80%, their content moderators by 30%, their public policy people by 70%,

00:07:47.740 and then they enabled previously suspended users.

00:07:51.680 So it's like Volvo firing their designers, their engineers, and then not letting the

00:07:57.400 traffic infraction people and the ambulance in while putting all these dangerous drivers

00:08:02.640 back on the road.

00:08:03.420 You're creating a perfect storm for online hate.

00:08:05.900 So there are lots of different tools in the toolbox that we'll be using differently.

00:08:10.160 But ultimately the aim is transparency to achieve accountability

00:08:14.180 and to get companies to raise their safety standards

00:08:16.980 so people can have safer, more positive experiences online.

00:08:20.180 I think that is the bottom line.

00:08:21.900 We've used our transparency powers to really find out what's happening under the hood,

00:08:27.780 what technologies are you using, what are you doing or not doing

00:08:31.320 to scan for child sexual abuse or terrorist content.

00:08:35.900 So that was Julie Inman Grant. I think we've accidentally included a bit of another clip in

00:08:42.540 there. But the point that she was making was that Elon Musk firing the censors at Twitter slash exes

00:08:50.140 like carnage on the streets and no fire trucks or ambulances or something like that. I don't begrudge

00:08:55.560 anyone for using metaphors. I'm folksy. I use metaphors all the time. But I do begrudge her for

00:09:00.140 thinking that there is an automatic safety risk because these are the terms they use, a safety

00:09:06.720 risk when people are exposed to ideas online that they may not like. Now, to give you some context

00:09:13.540 here, Julie Inman Grant, she's American, but she's in Australia as the e-safety commissioner. Now,

00:09:19.960 this is a job that is kind of unique. In fact, it's not kind of unique. It is unique. It's not

00:09:24.520 something we really have anywhere else. It's something we likely will have at some point in

00:09:29.440 Canada. However, as we see Justin Trudeau moving more and more towards a model of online regulation

00:09:35.380 that could be very similar to the one in Australia, but the e-safety commissioner is there

00:09:40.600 to ensure that people have, as Julie Eamon Grant says, a safe and positive experience online.

00:09:46.860 But I go back to those fundamental rights that she was talking about being in need of recalibration.

00:09:52.920 I would say that a positive experience online is being able to speak freely without the heavy hand

00:09:57.260 of state censorship. Well, I caught up with Julie Inman-Grant today in Davos and wanted to ask her

00:10:04.060 exactly where she thinks that line should be on things you should not be allowed to say.

00:10:09.340 Thank you for Lawton with True North in Canada. I'm just wondering, when you talked about

00:10:13.020 recalibrating free speech a couple of years ago, what were you referring to?

00:10:17.340 I am talking about balancing a range of rights that everyone has a right to online.

00:10:23.100 Where do you think freedom of expression online should be limited?

00:10:27.660 When it undermines other people's freedom of expression

00:10:31.100 and causes significant harm. But that's all I have to say.

00:10:34.540 But that's a subjective term. Who's to adjudicate what harm is? Is it governments?

00:10:38.300 Well actually it is the government drew the line on what the threshold was and an investigation

00:10:43.660 is taken when somebody reports to a platform when it doesn't conform to their terms of service.

00:10:50.780 they come to us to adjudicate do you believe that the first amendment has too high a bar for the

00:10:56.440 online era the first amendment does not apply in australia i know but you're an american so i

00:11:02.120 thought in general as a standard for freedom of expression do you think that's too high of one

00:11:05.820 no i don't i don't apply that i apply the laws of the australian government that the

00:11:11.060 parliamentarians provided and the thresholds they provided and it's measured against those

00:11:15.220 thresholds. Thank you. Yeah, she defers to the Australian Parliament and point taken. I wasn't

00:11:22.060 asking her about the First Amendment because I was believing that she was bound to it as someone

00:11:26.540 in an Australian role. I was asking because that is, and I'm going to say this in a video that's

00:11:31.320 coming out soon, that is the gold standard of freedom of expression. And by that, I mean it's

00:11:36.440 the one with the highest bar for what you should be allowed to say. And evidently, she thinks that's

00:11:40.940 too high. So things that you can say in a country like the United States where you have very strong

00:11:45.180 freedom of speech protections, she does not believe you should be able to say on the internet,

00:11:49.960 at least in Australia. Now, if we see all of these world leaders coming together, swapping their

00:11:55.800 notes and saying, this is how we do it here, you should do it there as well, like that, this is why

00:12:00.500 Canadians need to pay very close attention to this, especially since we are right now in the thick

00:12:06.100 of a massive overhaul of internet regulations in Canada, more internet regulations, more

00:12:11.280 regulation the government has promised on online speech. And absolutely, I think someone,

00:12:16.040 a Canadian Julie Inman grant is going to be inevitable. But the freedom of expression issue

00:12:22.680 was one that I don't even think people in the World Economic Forum's orbit even see as being

00:12:31.160 an issue. I mean, many of them may see it as being an issue that we have too much freedom of

00:12:35.460 expression. Certainly, I think some of the people I've been trying to ask questions to this week

00:12:39.040 would probably not mind it if press freedoms were abated, or at least in their immediate vicinity.

00:12:46.300 I had the chance to catch up with Will.i.am, who's a singer.

00:12:50.320 Actually, I think he's still in the Black Eyed Peas, which still exists without Fergie,

00:12:54.340 so maybe it's not worth existing, but nevertheless, this is not the Black Eyed Peas evaluation hour,

00:12:59.680 at least not until we get to the bonus edition later on.

00:13:02.960 But Will.i.am, he's an artist. He's been at the World Economic Forum before.

00:13:06.460 I enjoy his music. I was just curious.

00:13:08.020 As an artist, this was nothing to do with WEF.

00:13:10.280 Does he think freedom of expression is under attack?

00:13:13.040 And while I was pleased that he took the time to chat with me,

00:13:16.320 and Avi Yamini of Rebel News happened to be standing nearby as well

00:13:20.060 and got in on the action,

00:13:21.680 it was clear he's never really been forced to contemplate

00:13:25.340 that there may be an issue with freedom of expression.

00:13:28.640 Well, I'm just wondering as an artist,

00:13:30.040 what you think of the state of freedom of expression right now?

00:13:33.000 You still have it.

00:13:35.040 Do you feel it's under threat?

00:13:36.220 no when has it why would it be well countries don't always have the same commitment to free

00:13:42.020 speech if you feel happy you've answered my question i just wanted to get your thoughts

00:13:44.780 on it as an artist um i i think uh i'm happy that i live in the country that i'm from

00:13:56.940 i think everybody has the should have the right to express themselves without uh hurting

00:14:04.020 other folks you still have to be mindful we all live on the same planet should they be

00:14:09.980 censored if they if they do hurt other folks their feelings no no no you want to inspire

00:14:19.380 but if i hurt your feelings should i be censored

00:14:23.260 depends if you if you were it depends if you had malicious

00:14:29.460 if your intent was to hurt me on purpose and then you need to up your love and you shouldn't

00:14:38.660 why why do you want to exist in a world where you're purposely trying to hurt somebody's feelings

00:14:42.180 now if things are taken out of context or i no i don't believe in censorship what i do believe in

00:14:50.140 is trying your hardest to inspire and uplift people.

00:14:54.620 I'm saying what I think is just love, empathy, inspiration.

00:14:58.740 Do you trust the government to control the Internet now?

00:15:01.880 Well, that's a very broad thing.

00:15:03.800 What I did say was Web 2 and social media, we didn't get that right.

00:15:08.220 Somebody has to...

00:15:09.440 Elon Musk is trying something else called community notes.

00:15:11.640 You're hitting me with a lot of information I don't know about.

00:15:13.820 Do you feel the World Economic Forum is delivering that love and inspiration you're calling for?

00:15:18.380 I don't think as a whole now.

00:15:20.140 as a whole it's not just world economic form it's companies governments you know gangsters a lot of

00:15:28.100 things bro i think us people you right how we how we conduct in this interview you trying to get

00:15:36.900 your two cents in his try where's the order in that respect honor hey you finish questions ask

00:15:42.320 right i don't really like him so i don't mind hurting his feelings yeah that's not cool though

00:15:46.800 No, I'm just joking.

00:15:47.580 Where's the love of him?

00:15:48.280 I love him.

00:15:48.940 I love him, bro.

00:15:49.920 I feel like the World Economic Forum is not really about love.

00:15:52.980 It's more about control.

00:15:53.820 You know, I'm at Davos.

00:15:55.800 And I'm looking for mentors for my students

00:15:57.880 because I have a program teaching kids computer science and robotics

00:16:01.620 so that when they graduate college, they could fill jobs or create jobs.

00:16:04.780 How long have you been doing that for?

00:16:05.780 For 12 years.

00:16:07.060 Now, if you want to come mentor our kids, if you're about that, about that,

00:16:09.620 then please feel free to come help inspire our kids to be journalists.

00:16:13.840 Do that.

00:16:14.200 put your, you know, put your heart where your freaking, where your mind is and your passion is.

00:16:20.620 That was Will. I am, and again, very pleasant guy. I admire being able to be an artist and

00:16:26.640 jet set around the world and perform and have fans and see the world in such a positive way,

00:16:32.620 love and inspiration. Great. We all need to do better. Okay. I don't want to be mad at the guy,

00:16:37.940 but I don't believe he is connected to the real world because that's not the way a lot of people

00:16:42.640 in the real world see things. You can be censored for having the wrong opinion. And yes, I mentioned

00:16:49.040 that the United States has very strong protections. That's the country he's from. So when he says that

00:16:53.220 he's lucky to live and grow up where he did, yes, fine. But around the world, that is not the way

00:17:01.020 things are. And it's people in the halls of Davos, walking those halls, who want to infringe

00:17:08.220 on those rights. And I go back to the theme of this year's World Economic Forum Annual Meeting,

00:17:15.120 rebuilding trust. And I said at the very outset of this series this week that they were clearly

00:17:20.680 not interested in looking inward and looking in the mirror and realizing that they are the reason

00:17:25.460 that so few people in the world trust them. And one point that I came up with on this was about

00:17:33.400 trusting in something as basic as currency. Because it used to be that you could know how

00:17:38.980 much money was in your pocket. You had a $10 bill in your pocket, you had $10. Well, the government's

00:17:43.720 all around the world now. Central banks are talking about central bank digital currencies,

00:17:47.920 digital money. I know all of you, or at least most of you, are skeptical in the very least or

00:17:53.600 outright against this. One of the people I happened upon today was Christine Lagarde, who is a very

00:18:00.340 influential woman in the global financial system she is the president of the european central bank

00:18:04.980 and didn't want to answer a single question well i think she didn't want to answer a single

00:18:10.020 question in general but the question i wanted to get an answer from was this afternoon ma'am how

00:18:15.540 can people have confidence in digital currencies and government not using it as a tool of control

00:18:19.940 i'm not giving an interview i'm not speaking because i'm in a quiet period this is about

00:18:24.580 rebuilding trust this year how can people have trust in these institutions when governments

00:18:28.180 wield so much control.

00:18:29.980 Mrs. Lagarde, where's the privacy of the people?

00:18:32.880 Shouldn't you be answering questions

00:18:34.100 if this conference's theme is rebuilding trust, ma'am?

00:18:36.180 Mrs. Lagarde, we can go in.

00:18:37.620 I got to admire her.

00:18:41.320 I'm actually, I'm going to give her a bit of applause.

00:18:43.820 Next time I get asked a question I don't want to answer,

00:18:45.740 I'm just going to say, I'm in a quiet place right now.

00:18:49.360 When my boss comes to me and says,

00:18:51.240 Andrew, you haven't done your show this week.

00:18:54.100 I'm in a quiet place right now.

00:18:56.100 when Canada Revenue Agency calls and says,

00:18:58.420 oh, Mr. Lawton, I don't think you filed your...

00:19:00.140 I'm in a quiet place right now.

00:19:02.700 And no, I'm not talking about the Sandra Bullock movie.

00:19:04.580 I'm in that quiet...

00:19:05.480 I think she was in that.

00:19:06.320 No, that was the blind...

00:19:07.380 No.

00:19:08.020 Yeah, she was in...

00:19:08.680 No, A Quiet Place was Emily Blunt.

00:19:10.080 Okay.

00:19:10.560 I'm not talking about the Emily Blunt movie.

00:19:12.820 I'd say this is why I shouldn't do pop culture or sports now, apparently.

00:19:15.500 I make a fool of myself on both.

00:19:17.740 But, yes, I know John Krasinski was in it.

00:19:19.960 Now Sean's, like, just telling me the entire cast of that.

00:19:22.080 Sean, I'm in a quiet place right now.

00:19:24.040 I don't need any of this nonsense.

00:19:26.100 So, I mean, that's hilarious.

00:19:27.980 You say, okay, look, she has the right to walk by.

00:19:30.800 She has the right to not answer my question.

00:19:32.660 She could have, in the time she was telling me she was in a quiet place, have just perhaps

00:19:37.440 said, oh, yes, you know, here's the answer to your question.

00:19:39.460 But she didn't.

00:19:40.500 And, you know, maybe it's because she thinks I'm a gnat, I'm a flea, I don't matter.

00:19:43.980 And perhaps she's right.

00:19:45.040 I don't matter to her.

00:19:46.260 I am irrelevant to her.

00:19:47.500 She has probably already forgotten me.

00:19:49.600 But I will not forget that one of the most powerful bankers in the world could not take

00:19:54.220 just even a few moments while cavorting with people who claim that a crisis of mistrust is

00:20:00.760 plaguing the world. And she could not answer a simple question, did not want to deign to answer

00:20:05.960 a simple question on why people should trust the government that is pushing digital currency for

00:20:11.240 them. Something very similar happened with Queen Maxima of the Netherlands. Now, it's a bit of a

00:20:17.080 weird sentence for me to say that I was attempting to speak to Queen Maxima of the Netherlands. I am

00:20:22.880 not a Dutch monarchist, so I have no particular relationship to the monarchy there, but I

00:20:28.920 respect the institution.

00:20:30.560 And I was kind of surprised, I must admit, that she didn't want to answer a question

00:20:37.500 that maybe was tinged with politics, but still didn't have to elicit a political answer.

00:20:43.080 She opted to say nothing at all.

00:20:44.940 Take a look.

00:20:46.000 Any message for the Dutch farmers who've had to shut down because of your government's

00:20:49.600 policies on farming, madam?

00:20:52.880 I was very friendly. I started it with a Your Majesty. I almost got like shoved out of the

00:20:59.440 way by one of her security officials, which has become a common enough occurrence this week that

00:21:03.980 I'm not too bothered by it. But what I was asking her is whether she had a message for farmers in

00:21:10.040 her country, the Netherlands, who because of government policies have not been able to survive.

00:21:14.840 They have shut down their farms. This is a very real phenomenon in the Netherlands. If you followed

00:21:19.780 the Dutch farmer protest, you'll have seen why farmers have risen up against the government.

00:21:25.000 Now, she is the head of state. She's not the elected head of government. But that's why I

00:21:29.100 was asking about a message of support. She was on her way into an event where she was speaking about

00:21:34.200 inclusive financing. And as it happened, when she left the event, she was walking by where I was

00:21:39.460 standing. I thought I'd give it one more go. Just see any message for Dutch farmers who have

00:21:44.860 been struggling. It's one question. You can apologize. That's fine. I'm allowed to ask a

00:21:49.500 question, I believe. I toned the question down even. I said, just farmers are struggling. Do

00:21:57.760 you have a message of support for them? And nothing. Instead, I was told by one woman who

00:22:03.540 I don't even think was Dutch. She sounded American when she was speaking, and she apologized,

00:22:08.820 but not really. And I was kind of baffled by that. And I insisted that I had a right to ask

00:22:13.660 a question, which she agreed with, although evidently I did not have a right to an answer.

00:22:18.880 So all of that is to say that these people believe they are above those they represent.

00:22:25.440 And look, if you're the queen, you literally are above the people you represent.

00:22:28.680 So can't argue with the logic on that.

00:22:31.220 She doesn't owe me anything.

00:22:32.240 I'm not Dutch.

00:22:33.560 And even if I were Dutch, she wouldn't owe me a response.

00:22:36.620 But that's the problem is that all of these people don't actually care about that.

00:22:41.140 The president of the European Central Bank can talk about misinformation and disinformation,

00:22:45.400 but doesn't want to say, why should people trust that you and your governments are not going to

00:22:49.520 weaponize digital currency? Dutch farmers in the Netherlands can protest, can protest, can protest,

00:22:54.620 but the Queen does not have to take 15 seconds to tell them why the government and the Crown

00:23:01.620 might in fact have their back, probably because they don't. It's the same as John Kerry this week,

00:23:07.200 it's the same as the Prime Minister of Bulgaria yesterday. Who else did we get that didn't want

00:23:11.180 to talk? There have been a few, too many to name. As I joked yesterday, some of the clips we've had

00:23:15.280 of these shows, you look and be like, oh, wow, interview with, you know, the prime minister of,

00:23:19.100 you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, Stan. And it's like four seconds because it's a question

00:23:22.840 and no answer. So this is why there, it's been a bit discouraging in a way, the coverage that

00:23:30.180 we've been trying to do here, but, but encouraging at the same time, because we realize that this

00:23:34.500 silence is deafening, that when all of these people do not answer, when they keep walking,

00:23:38.640 they're telling us a lot more about them than some scripted pablum answer they may have given

00:23:44.840 would have. And it's why the Javier Malay speech yesterday, by the way, was so powerful. Now,

00:23:49.700 I actually got this morning a retweet, or it might have been a like, but I think it was a

00:23:53.500 retweet from Argentinian President Javier Malay on Twitter. I had tweeted something about his speech

00:23:58.320 and he retweeted it alongside with a bunch of other comments. So I don't think it was too,

00:24:02.120 too personal an endorsement of anything I said. But someone pointed out, I should have pulled the

00:24:07.520 screenshot, maybe I'll look at it next week, of the YouTube page for the World Economic Forum

00:24:13.080 that has like all of the speeches and panels and presentations that have been given this week. And

00:24:17.580 you look at them and they all like 2,000 views, 4,000 views, 1,500 views, seven views or whatever.

00:24:24.280 And then you get to Javier Malay's address. And it was at the time, you know, like hundreds of

00:24:28.560 thousands of views. So more people around the world care about what he said than what a lot

00:24:34.460 of these other people said, because he actually called them out. And there was someone else who

00:24:39.460 did the same thing today a ceo who decided to call out some of the rhetoric on the so-called energy

00:24:45.940 transition it was all about the um you know having an ideological position on what we can do with

00:24:52.660 fossil fuels over time uh i think my my my colleagues in the sector energy sector educate me

00:25:00.340 on 80% of the energy generated 40 years ago was from fossil fuels, and 80% of the energy

00:25:09.980 generated today is from fossil fuels.

00:25:13.660 That is the truth, that is the data.

00:25:16.440 And so if we're not going to severely impact costs, fossil fuels are going to be here way

00:25:23.280 longer than our politicians talk about.

00:25:26.840 I don't think we're honest in terms of the impact of costs that rapid transitions would

00:25:33.100 engender.

00:25:34.100 I think there are many new innovations driven by technology that can very quickly impact

00:25:41.180 carbon emissions in existing industries.

00:25:44.020 And to do that, you need to also transition the skills in those industries.

00:25:48.580 But I think the debate is somewhat skewed, and I would agree with Hozu.

00:25:52.760 ideological driven not practical execution operational just as you said minister

00:25:58.540 that is such an important aspect of this because we have to do it but how to execute it is going

00:26:05.020 to be really really important for it to be successful and save the planet yeah that was

00:26:10.780 jonas prizing of manpower group and again what he's saying he was saying it in a very even keeled

00:26:16.300 even-handed measured way that we are not honest and he was saying we he was including himself in

00:26:22.300 that category, but I think he was taking aim at politicians and the WEF set that they're not being

00:26:27.120 honest about the costs of this transition and saying that there is just a statement of fact

00:26:32.360 that fossil fuels are not going anywhere. So this idea that we're going to just eradicate them like

00:26:36.680 that lunatic rant from Al Gore yesterday suggested is, well, it's lunacy. So it was interesting

00:26:44.480 contrasting what he said with what Chrystia Freeland said, who's the deputy prime minister

00:26:49.200 of canada and also a member of the wef board of trustees because she talked about decarbonization

00:26:57.440 that's the nice little buzzword is just being no big deal take a look that is new about industrial

00:27:04.800 policy is we are developing our economies growing our economies at a time when we also need to

00:27:14.980 accomplish the green transition. And I spoke yesterday to a very significant international

00:27:21.100 business leader who is also a big investor in Canada. And he said to me, all the countries in

00:27:28.600 the world need to be very careful that decarbonization does not mean de-industrialization.

00:27:36.780 I thought that was an extremely smart comment. And Canada is absolutely determined that

00:27:43.480 decarbonization for us will mean more jobs more growth more manufacturing and we recognize

00:27:52.040 government needs to play a role to make that happen

00:27:57.560 so not only does government need to push decarbonization but oh it's going to be great

00:28:02.920 it's going to be more jobs more growth everyone's going to be happy we're all going to just you know

00:28:07.240 inhale unicorn farts and float to the happiest days of our lives it's just going to be

00:28:11.640 so wonderful. Well, if it's so wonderful, why does the government need to force it? Do you think the

00:28:17.000 moderator asked that question of Chrystia Freeland? No. I mean, admittedly, the moderator didn't ask

00:28:21.220 Chrystia Freeland another question, but that may have been more to do with timing than anything

00:28:25.420 personal, sadly. But this was the, again, I would love for someone to have asked Chrystia Freeland,

00:28:31.540 perhaps on the streets, perhaps at a press conference, whatever, how this thing is going

00:28:36.740 to be so easy and how it's going to be so nice and how it's going to make only good things and

00:28:41.260 why that's the case, but government still has to force it to happen. The reason is because it is a

00:28:46.240 load of nonsense. Anyone who knows anything about energy consumption, not just in Canada, but around

00:28:52.920 the world especially, knows that this dream that they keep pushing is not happening. It's not

00:29:00.380 happening. And even if it does, it's going to take a huge amount of pain. There was a clip a couple

00:29:06.360 of years ago from one speaker who said, yeah, there's pain, but it's going to be worth it.

00:29:10.120 And this was just said so nonchalantly because, again, the people in Davos don't often really care about the struggles of ordinary people around the world.

00:29:18.520 So that is one of the big takeaways here.

00:29:21.340 And I think it's probably something that we knew, but we're seeing more and more of a reminder of with each passing day.

00:29:27.960 Now, I said we'd do something a little bit lighter here.

00:29:31.100 So I had a request from a viewer named Cheryl, because I've been talking all week about how we have to go back and forth every day from our hotel in Austria to Switzerland, to Davos, Switzerland.

00:29:41.560 And Cheryl had said, well, maybe you could share a video of your drive.

00:29:46.100 So I figured, OK, what better way to do this than to just like, you know, get Sean, who's been filming so much, to just film a little snippet of me taking in the beautiful scenery as we made our way this morning from our hotel to Davos.

00:30:01.100 Wow. Ooh. Oh, okay. Look at that. Beautiful. Oh, gorgeous.

00:30:19.380 All right. I had to have some fun with you. That was like one of the like million,

00:30:22.180 you know, four kilometer long tunnels you have to go through. So yeah, driving in Switzerland,

00:30:26.000 we learned is not for the claustrophobic, but no, no, no. By popular request, by which

00:30:31.040 I mean the one lovely lady who asked for it here is an actual uh behind the scenes view of our way

00:30:36.220 to Davos this morning well we are on our way into Davos we are I think about uh 25 minutes out of

00:30:44.380 the village so we're just getting to that fun part where we have to like just drive and zigzag until

00:30:48.840 we get up the mountain but uh you can see on the right there uh the beautiful mountains of the

00:30:53.520 Swiss Alps uh we had a request from Cheryl to show a little bit of the scenery that we enjoy

00:31:00.880 which is a bit of a stretch at this point on the daily commute from our hotel in Dornburn, Austria

00:31:07.880 to the center of the action for the World Economic Forum's annual meeting, which is in Davos.

00:31:14.080 Sean is filming right now, so you don't see him, but we've got Cosmin riding shotgun,

00:31:19.480 Cosmin, Georgia from True North, and yours truly driving.

00:31:22.620 We've been alternating-ish.

00:31:25.040 I think I took a day of not driving yesterday.

00:31:27.680 Cosmin, you've clocked a few more kilometers than me.

00:31:30.220 How's the Swiss-Austrian driving experience?

00:31:34.460 Driving is a little bit different.

00:31:38.160 The little roads are smaller.

00:31:40.420 The cars are smaller.

00:31:42.580 Sometimes it looks like you're going in the opposite direction when you're entering a highway.

00:31:48.720 But altogether, the scenery is beautiful.

00:31:52.080 And it hasn't been too bad.

00:31:55.200 yeah i the one thing i do love is the uh like the not the interstate but like the big highways

00:32:00.640 in switzerland or austria especially because the limit's 130 kilometers an hour which uh is great

00:32:06.820 so you make up all that time and then you get to here and if you're like behind you know some

00:32:12.100 slow-moving transport vehicle you are uh you know kind of stuck for the most of the drive here but

00:32:17.280 it's a nice little drive it's uh the roads haven't been too too bad weather has been kind of

00:32:21.080 cooperative all week i i think anyway which is good so uh oh my goodness okay we're coming up

00:32:26.380 on a uh we're coming up on one of the security checkpoints so we'll have to end it here but

00:32:29.560 we'll have a full report on today's andrew lawton show and thank you again to everyone for all your

00:32:34.180 support now as it happened we weren't coming up on a security checkpoint you can hear faintly in

00:32:41.140 the background a gps that won't shut up that's because like in my uh like excitement to share

00:32:46.620 the drive with you, I took a wrong turn. And I had to do like a U-turn on one of those zigzaggy

00:32:51.360 mountain roads. So I did it in a safe way. They have some, you know, pull-offs and turn-offs and

00:32:56.680 all of that. So basically the whole driving experience has been a turn-off for me. I'm like

00:33:00.520 the worst non-urban dweller imaginable because I don't love driving. But it's been good. We've

00:33:06.700 been tag-teaming it here. But nevertheless, this is the long-awaited True North minivan. So one

00:33:12.580 person on our team suggested we could have just skipped the hotel and uh slept in the van but uh

00:33:17.320 maybe maybe by world economic forum 2032 we'll start doing that but uh at a certain point it'll

00:33:22.620 have to be electric too and you know we haven't seen too many charging stations so anyway that

00:33:26.900 does it for us for today uh we will have more coverage over the next few days from the world

00:33:32.540 economic forum but i'm going to be back in the home studio on monday for more of canada's most

00:33:37.760 irreverent talk show i just want to say while i'm speaking to you live thank you to all of you who

00:33:41.560 been tuning into our coverage and supporting our coverage it's it's expensive to do this i mean we

00:33:46.280 brought three people overseas but we did it because it's important and because these are questions

00:33:51.160 that are not being asked by anyone else and even the ones that aren't answered i think it's important

00:33:55.880 that their refusal to answer is put on record in the way that it is so we'll have some other goodies

00:34:01.880 from the week that didn't fit into the shows available next week but in the meantime if you

00:34:06.040 If you want to support what we're doing here, please head over to donate.tnc.news

00:34:10.260 and I will see you next time.

00:34:12.240 Thank you, God bless, and a good day to you all.

00:34:15.080 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:34:17.600 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

00:34:36.040 We'll be right back.

00:35:06.040 We'll be right back.

Juno News - January 18, 2024

Davos Day 4 ｜ Online censorship finds a home at WEF

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