Juno News - What’s being discussed at the World Economic Forum？

00:00:00.000 you're tuned in to the andrew lawton show

00:00:05.860 i wanted to give you a bit of a scene setter for what you can expect this week i i'm joined

00:00:12.820 in davos by my producer and videographer sean who you can't see but i understand you heard a few

00:00:18.280 moments ago he made a rare audio cameo on the program and also by true north journalist and

00:00:24.820 editor cosman gerja who is with me i was gonna say in studio he's joining me in my hotel room

00:00:29.800 which is not nearly as salacious as it sounds i i promise you uh cosman good to have you uh joining

00:00:35.300 us in in davos here let me just ask you because you're a first timer at this you've not seen this

00:00:40.860 uh conference in action before what is what have your early impressions been here i think the uh

00:00:46.680 most extraordinary impression i've had is the fact that life goes on in davos i mean driving through

00:00:54.580 the city you see you know school children returning home uh you see people walking around biking etc

00:01:02.360 while at the same time all of these global elites descend on this place to set the global agenda

00:01:10.560 so it's a really interesting juxtaposition that happens where you see ordinary people going about

00:01:16.860 their everyday lives yet there are consequential decisions being made at this conference yeah and

00:01:25.620 i think that it's interesting because you're right in some ways like there are still locals here

00:01:29.760 but it's also weird and i've talked about this in the past that like all of these stores that exist

00:01:35.480 every other week of the year are just completely gone and when you walk down the main drag it's like

00:01:41.160 you know the india pavilion and the second india pavilion and the third india pavilion and so it's like

00:01:45.300 i remember the first time i i came i was looking on google maps ahead of time and saying oh that might

00:01:49.940 be a good restaurant to check out and then you get there it's like oh the restaurants just picked up

00:01:53.380 and left town because the world economic forum is here so i the theme this year is rebuilding trust

00:01:59.840 they they've got you know some heavy hitters on the lineup there's the the premier of china lee chung

00:02:04.100 there's uh javier malay who's the president of argentina who interestingly has been here before as an

00:02:09.680 economist uh emmanuel macron no one officially from canada as far as the canadian

00:02:15.280 government is on the speakers list now whether they'll they'll make appearances i i don't know

00:02:19.120 but what is it you're looking out for this week i think the uh issue of trust kind of like underwrites

00:02:26.580 everything that's happening here and uh true north has reported on their global risk report which the

00:02:34.100 world economic forum releases every single year and the number one issue that they chose in the short

00:02:41.680 term for 2024 was misinformation and disinformation and i'm interested to see what some of the speakers

00:02:50.560 will say uh are the solutions to these proposed problems how do we deal with what they call

00:02:58.940 misinformation or disinformation and the consequences which i think they think is the declining trust in

00:03:06.880 institutions that they're a part of so solutions might what they might look like uh i i expect some

00:03:15.360 bizarre and heavy-handed uh propositions being made the other major thing is uh ai seems to be

00:03:24.720 everywhere at this conference this year there are a bunch of different pavilions and we are having uh we are

00:03:33.840 going to see the uh ceo of open ai samuel altman showing up and and discussing giving a panel and uh

00:03:44.560 so i i'd like to see what he has to say yeah and i actually have a clip that i'll share a little bit

00:03:50.400 later on in the show of klaus schwab like six years ago or seven years ago talking about ai and and it is

00:03:56.320 interesting to see i mean it's one of those things where we don't quite have an answer in society to how we

00:04:03.040 deal with this and and so i i'm very i'll say nervous about how politicians who don't really

00:04:09.440 know much about the issue are going to come away from this conference where they are talking about

00:04:13.520 it a lot uh thinking like it's it's just you know some know nothing politician who's here like i i

00:04:18.560 ran into earlier chris coons who's a senator in delaware i presume this guy who's like you know 70 0.98

00:04:23.440 has nothing to do with ai doesn't know anything about it but he's the type of guy who could like be in

00:04:27.520 some panel and they all say this is something's a good idea and he brings it back to washington

00:04:31.520 says you know what we ought to do so i i'm nervous about that and so in the case of sam altman you

00:04:36.240 know maybe he can you know bring bring something relatively sensible to the discussion there also

00:04:41.760 has just been this massive massive number of sessions i saw on the agenda devoted to climate

00:04:48.000 change and like every possible angle imaginable there's like you know how to transition away from

00:04:53.280 fossil fuels how to transition to renewables how to accelerate the transition net zero net zero net like

00:04:59.360 they're doing it's like the same discussion like 20 different times and we even saw a little bit

00:05:03.200 of that walking around today on the streets like there was the one we were going to go into the

00:05:06.640 climate hub but the climate hub had opened uh until tomorrow so we'll we'll give you a fair report

00:05:11.280 on the climate hub on tomorrow's show but that seems to be a really pervasive theme here as well

00:05:17.040 yeah no climate seems to be top of mind still but it's not the theme of the conference that

00:05:24.000 seems to have changed uh to an entirely different issue and while i i think you know we we came here

00:05:32.640 on the day where protests were happening and all of these left-wing protesters were pressuring

00:05:39.360 the global elites to take more action uh calling them hip hypocrites etc and if you're here

00:05:47.520 one of the things that you see is like the helicopters flying by uh we we we know that there are private

00:05:56.880 jet terminals you know when i arrived here at the airport there were designated world economic forum

00:06:03.600 areas waiting for these global people to come so they're all flying in and the hypocrisy is mounting

00:06:12.240 and i do think that uh they're aware of it to some degree right and it it'll be interesting to see

00:06:19.760 how long that continues how long they will keep pushing this climate issue when it's apparent to

00:06:25.360 everybody that they are not really part of the solution right yeah and just i mean as a as a an

00:06:33.520 illustration of this we were trying to find there's like all of the you know they they take the private

00:06:37.680 jets in and then when they get to the private jet terminal they transfer from a private jet to a

00:06:42.160 helicopter and then they take the helicopter to davos and then they get from the helicopter to a

00:06:46.880 limo and the limo takes them to their hotel it's a it's a really sustainable way of doing these but

00:06:50.960 we were trying to find the heliport and the reason we couldn't find it on on a map when we

00:06:55.440 were looking is because it does it's not actually a heliport the rest of the year it's a farmer's

00:06:59.440 field so it's like what better illustration of the world economic forums approach which is to just

00:07:03.840 like cover up the farmer's field with helicopters for all of the uh the jet-setting elites all right

00:07:09.280 right well we are looking forward to seeing what you do the rest of the week cosmon uh it is great

00:07:13.680 to talk to you and great to have you here at all as well thanks for listening to the andrew lawton show

00:07:18.080 support the program by donating to true north at www.tnc.news

00:07:23.280 www.tnc.news.gov.au

00:07:41.040 you

Juno News - January 18, 2024

What’s being discussed at the World Economic Forum？

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