The World Economic Forum 2023 at Davos

The global economics of warming seas, melting glaciers, and lost trees

In 1971 the World Economic Forum (WEF) founder, Klaus Schwab, invited executives from European companies to the ski resort of Davos, located high in the Swiss Alps.

The annual WEF was held January 16 -20, 2023. The theme was “Cooperation in a Fragmented World.”There were 2700 attendees.

Like COP 27 and COP 15, there was a bold call for collective action in the face of global crises and from the perspective of WEF an emphasis on stronger public private cooperation. The challenge of WEF was well presented in its overview.

Leaders from 40 governmental interests and corporations attended and the numbers outweighed attending activists and non-profits. Top CEOs included J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, BlackRock, Microsoft, UBER, BP, and strong representation from the big three trading powers - US, Europe, and China.

As reported in CNN Business, the absence of powerful leaders including President Joe Biden, China’s XI Jinping, Narendra Modi, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, French President Emmanuel Macron, and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunk was also notable. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, was the only G8 member in attendance, representing highly industrialized nations.

Talks included the subjects of risks and risk management including such issues as wars, fears of escalating inflation, cybersecurity issues. Plenary sessions include a range of topics of concern related to global inequities and the environment.

According to a Reuters Report some attendees left the WEF with some optimism.

However, the WEF is viewed by many of its detractors as more of the same - a “swarm” of elite interests who fly polluting private jets to an elite ski resort as a chance to get away. The behavior was viewed as offensive given timelines related to climate change and “crippling and increasing global inequities.

Many of the complaints reflected the same perspectives on COP27 and COP15.

There was a general sense that WEF, along with the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), were becoming irrelevant by holding on to a status quo; by hanging on to old ways and not asking the right questions about new ways.

Cooperation between international private and public interests has its challenges. For instance, Markus Kornprobst, a professor International relations at the Vienna School of International Studies says “it’s basically too simple to say it’s an era of globalization or an era of deglobalization….It’s an in-between era.”

Sea Change? defining "global economics" for the rest of us in the face of climate change

The CEO of Palantir Technologies observed"...the cost pressure is “enormous” everything has to be cheaper, at least from the production side."

The problem is that currently, global economics now pretty much organizes economic production the same way: labor is voluntary, capital is mostly in private hands, and production is coordinated in a decentralized way and motivated by profit.

Capitalization with its variants remains a juggernaut that ignores what Raguram Rajah former governor of the Reserve Bank of India called “the rest of the world.” The rest of the world includes activists outside the bubble who demand that the energy industry to stop hijacking the transition to clean power with green language, who demand that the more powerful stop new oil investments, and that they make good on loss and damage funding.

In terms of pressure, there are some inroads that indicate steps toward change. Global movements with common causes these days are growing. They might be seen as tentacles of increasingly massive movements covering the globe drawn by common injustices, gross inequities, and concern for the future of the globe. These displays of unrest with a common cause make those in power who uphold the status quo nervous whatever the ‘“green” language.

However, obfuscating and imbedded language related to global economics present challenges to common cause movements. 

Under the rubric global economics Branko Milanovic writing for Foreign affairs said there are two competing forms of capitalism that are in competition and also intertwined. There is the US liberal meritocratic form of capitalism while China basically represents a state-led, political model of capitalism.

Privatization marks both. Growing inequality also marks both. Over time both models have produced greater equality among nations while at the same time they have led to greater inequality within countries. Then there are the countries, e.g. in Africa, undergoing transformative processes that are up for grabs.

Rightfully the term global economics is not owned by an elite few determine to hold on to profits. It dictates but also belongs to Interdependencies and mutual benefits with say small scale farmers who organized modes of production historically found throughout civilizations. These modes of production have broken down not because of their failures or even changing demands but because of gross inequities associated with the terms macroeconomics and microeconomics.

Perhaps there is a sea change happening. The current crises and the responding movements have no national boundaries in their common cause. There is the presence of sheer numbers representing another kind of global power; the power of movement with a common cause that threatens elite interests seeking short term profits and a longer term life.

This kind of power is reflected in an open letter with simple language sent by Greta Thunburg, et al, to gas and oil interests: "If you fail to act immediately, be advised that citizens around the world will consider taking any and all legal action to hold you accountable. And we will keep protesting in the streets in huge numbers."

And at Davos … For those who wondered what’s the point in attending the annual WEF meeting as many did.

It is about dialogue with a time-limit. Yet pushing change is a learning process. At Davos protests against the status quo again sought fissures in green language that signified delaying tactics and cover stories. For example, in the case of offsetting proposals William McDonnell with the ICVCM noted no matter what “definitive quality standard" for carbon credits is established voluntary markets and corporate volunteerism hasn’t worked in the past. This is a key issue.

What Davos reveals is a glimpse of simultaneous and converging global movements in a push for sea change, with more equitable and balanced solutions, happening in the right place and the right time.

Ultimately the ideologies and the sentiments as well as the facts behind growing global movements willl lead to structural and administrative changes with the help of a new generation now seasoned in battle.

For now, asking and answering the "who owns what? question demands international cooperation, a rule of law, and enlightened self interest from all parties.

Hopefully, the transitional question, who owns what, will survive. The answer is closely tied to the fate of humanity and all beings on the planet.