Juno News - January 16, 2023The elites get called out at the WEF
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Summary
In Davos, a group of anti-capitalist protesters demonstrate against the World Economic Forum (WEF) and its agenda on climate justice, economic equality, and the need to tax the rich. Andrew Lawton talks to protesters from all over the world to find out who they are and what they're fighting for.
Transcript
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Coming to you from Davos, Switzerland, where True North is here for the World Economic Forum
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Annual Meeting 2023. Hundreds, thousands of journalists, global elites, business leaders,
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politicians are all here in the Swiss mountain to town to talk about the things that they believe
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will solve the world's problems. They talk about this every year and some people aren't exactly
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fans of it. Just like when we were here in May, there were a group of protesters that were largely
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on the left. A lot of anti-capitalist voices calling for climate justice, calling for upending the WEF
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that had their own view of what was really going on here. And it was that they needed to do more
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for so-called climate justice, more to tax the rich. Spoke to one gentleman named Johannes from Berlin
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who had this to say. We live in a climate catastrophe and we need climate justice and climate justice
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doesn't work with billionaires that just decide whatever they want to do because they don't care
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about the climate. How did you get here from Berlin? We took a bus with 50 people about and then we
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walked up. What would you like them to do? If you could go in there and they asked you what your
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solution was, what would you want them to do? Well, at first we have a huge difference between the global
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north and the global south and we need to have it more equal at first. Here in Davos, for example,
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it's way too rich and way too rich people are here and we need them to give away money. I don't know
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how, but we have to do that somehow. Now, how would taking money from the north affect the climate?
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The more you, the more money you have, the more CO2 you emit. That's what we know. You have private
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jets, you have big houses and so on. And that means they are the problem. And when they don't have any
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money anymore, they can't spend it on stuff like that. So if people are poorer, it's better for the
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climate? No, it depends on the level of richness. And billionaires emit way too much while on the
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other side, a lot of people are poor, which are affected by climate, the climate crisis, but they
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can't do anything against it. So they need the money for it. It's quite easy. Now, Johannes came from
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Germany. Other protesters came from as far away as other parts of Switzerland, from the United Kingdom,
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from Austria. They traveled from all across Europe to protest for climate justice and economic
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equality. Marlena from Austria said that she doesn't believe capitalism itself is the problem,
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but also articulated that there's no denying the status quo is not working for ordinary people.
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We need to talk about wealth, especially in terms of power and power distribution. And taxation of wealth
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can actually help redistribute power more democratically than right now. Because when you have huge
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amounts of wealth, you have huge amounts of influence, but you're not democratically elected,
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who gives you the right to decide on behalf of everybody? I think the status quo shows that the
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version of capitalism we have really doesn't help the people and it doesn't help the planet. On the
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contrary, it's really just a motor for disaster, frankly. The thing, though, is the isms in themselves,
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capitalism, socialism, communism, whateverism, they don't help because they pretend like there is
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one super answer for everything. But it's much more complex than that.
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Now, one of the most interesting people I met was not your garden variety Antifa protester. Phil
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White is a representative of Patriotic Millionaires, a group in the UK of millionaires who want to be
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taxed more. This is a little bit from my conversation with Phil. We're campaigning for wealth taxes and
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reduced wealth inequality in the world. So are you a millionaire yourself? I am, yeah, yeah. And I'm saying to my
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government, come and take some more tax from me. You can do more good with it than I can. Now, as you can see,
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the talking points you get from these demonstrators, not exactly in alignment with what people on the
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political right tend to say about the WEF. But it's worth noting that historically, a lot of the
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protests against the World Economic Forum did, in fact, come from the left. People that thought it was
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a corporate event that represented conservative interests. Now, I don't think anyone's actually
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making that point because the traditional left-right line has been redrawn. It's now about the elites
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versus the everyman. And even though people in this group may not identify as conservatives,
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it's interesting how much their main points might actually align with some people on the right
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who also aren't exactly fans of what's happening at this billionaire Disneyland.