Juno News - The elites get called out at the WEF

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.

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 1.00

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, 0.81

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.

Juno News - January 16, 2023

The elites get called out at the WEF

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