Juno News - January 16, 2023


The elites get called out at the WEF


Episode Stats

Length

4 minutes

Words per Minute

180.27335

Word Count

831

Sentence Count

46

Hate Speech Sentences

2


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Coming to you from Davos, Switzerland, where True North is here for the World Economic Forum
00:00:04.520 Annual Meeting 2023. Hundreds, thousands of journalists, global elites, business leaders,
00:00:10.440 politicians are all here in the Swiss mountain to town to talk about the things that they believe
00:00:15.180 will solve the world's problems. They talk about this every year and some people aren't exactly
00:00:20.520 fans of it. Just like when we were here in May, there were a group of protesters that were largely
00:00:25.800 on the left. A lot of anti-capitalist voices calling for climate justice, calling for upending the WEF
00:00:32.280 that had their own view of what was really going on here. And it was that they needed to do more
00:00:37.320 for so-called climate justice, more to tax the rich. Spoke to one gentleman named Johannes from Berlin
00:00:43.280 who had this to say. We live in a climate catastrophe and we need climate justice and climate justice
00:00:49.540 doesn't work with billionaires that just decide whatever they want to do because they don't care
00:00:54.400 about the climate. How did you get here from Berlin? We took a bus with 50 people about and then we
00:01:02.360 walked up. What would you like them to do? If you could go in there and they asked you what your
00:01:07.540 solution was, what would you want them to do? Well, at first we have a huge difference between the global
00:01:12.080 north and the global south and we need to have it more equal at first. Here in Davos, for example,
00:01:19.480 it's way too rich and way too rich people are here and we need them to give away money. I don't know
00:01:27.440 how, but we have to do that somehow. Now, how would taking money from the north affect the climate?
00:01:34.400 The more you, the more money you have, the more CO2 you emit. That's what we know. You have private
00:01:42.540 jets, you have big houses and so on. And that means they are the problem. And when they don't have any
00:01:50.780 money anymore, they can't spend it on stuff like that. So if people are poorer, it's better for the
00:01:55.520 climate? No, it depends on the level of richness. And billionaires emit way too much while on the
00:02:04.020 other side, a lot of people are poor, which are affected by climate, the climate crisis, but they
00:02:08.920 can't do anything against it. So they need the money for it. It's quite easy. Now, Johannes came from
00:02:13.560 Germany. Other protesters came from as far away as other parts of Switzerland, from the United Kingdom,
00:02:19.320 from Austria. They traveled from all across Europe to protest for climate justice and economic
00:02:25.140 equality. Marlena from Austria said that she doesn't believe capitalism itself is the problem,
00:02:31.380 but also articulated that there's no denying the status quo is not working for ordinary people.
00:02:36.900 We need to talk about wealth, especially in terms of power and power distribution. And taxation of wealth
00:02:41.500 can actually help redistribute power more democratically than right now. Because when you have huge
00:02:46.600 amounts of wealth, you have huge amounts of influence, but you're not democratically elected,
00:02:50.540 who gives you the right to decide on behalf of everybody? I think the status quo shows that the
00:02:55.180 version of capitalism we have really doesn't help the people and it doesn't help the planet. On the
00:02:58.900 contrary, it's really just a motor for disaster, frankly. The thing, though, is the isms in themselves,
00:03:05.280 capitalism, socialism, communism, whateverism, they don't help because they pretend like there is
00:03:10.320 one super answer for everything. But it's much more complex than that.
00:03:13.900 Now, one of the most interesting people I met was not your garden variety Antifa protester. Phil
00:03:19.000 White is a representative of Patriotic Millionaires, a group in the UK of millionaires who want to be
00:03:25.180 taxed more. This is a little bit from my conversation with Phil. We're campaigning for wealth taxes and
00:03:31.260 reduced wealth inequality in the world. So are you a millionaire yourself? I am, yeah, yeah. And I'm saying to my
00:03:36.660 government, come and take some more tax from me. You can do more good with it than I can. Now, as you can see,
00:03:42.140 the talking points you get from these demonstrators, not exactly in alignment with what people on the
00:03:47.280 political right tend to say about the WEF. But it's worth noting that historically, a lot of the
00:03:52.000 protests against the World Economic Forum did, in fact, come from the left. People that thought it was
00:03:57.040 a corporate event that represented conservative interests. Now, I don't think anyone's actually
00:04:02.340 making that point because the traditional left-right line has been redrawn. It's now about the elites
00:04:07.660 versus the everyman. And even though people in this group may not identify as conservatives,
00:04:12.420 it's interesting how much their main points might actually align with some people on the right
00:04:16.640 who also aren't exactly fans of what's happening at this billionaire Disneyland.
00:04:20.420 For True North from Davos, I'm Andrew Lawton.
00:04:22.660 Thank you.