World Economic Forum Declares 2023 the “Year of the Polycrisis”

Klaus Schwab, chairman of World Economic Forum (WEF), announced that the 53rd annual meeting was being launched in Davos, Switzerland. He stated that the summit would focus on rededicating its members towards a progressive climate agenda and social-justice agenda, despite what he called “a difficult time in history.” “unprecedented multiple crises.”

“The theme of our meeting in Davos is cooperation in a fragmented world,” Klaus stated. The WEF calls it the “Year of the Polycrisis,” Klaus declared: “economic, environmental, social, and geopolitical crises are converging and conflating, creating an extremely versatile and uncertain future.”

“We are all stuck in a crisis mindset,” He warned but also reassured the attendees. “the annual meeting at Davos shall try to make sure that leaders do not remain trapped in this crisis mindset but develop a longer-term, constructive perspective to shape the future in more sustainable, more inclusive, and more resilient way.”

Many of the most powerful corporate and government officials will be attending this WEF summit, which is expected to record a record attendance. There will be 379 public officers attending, including 30 heads-of-state, 56 finance ministers and 19 central bank governors. 39 heads of global organisations, such as the United Nations, International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organization, will also be there. There will also be 1,500 executives from 700 companies, including 600 CEOs from the world’s largest corporations.

“We have the key players globally,” Borge Brende is one of the WEF’s managing directors. “to create collaboration even in this fractured world.” He also mentioned that the WEF expects “a high-level Chinese delegation.”

This year’s agenda This includes doubling down the transition to renewable energies, codification of environmental, socio, and governance standards (ESG) to make compliance easier measurable. “social and green jobs for building inclusive and sustainable economies,” “diversity equity and inclusion [DEI] lighthouses,” Global Risk Report

“How do we build the inclusive, sustainable, and resilient growth?” asked Saadia Zahidi, managing director of the WEF. “A group of leaders from the public and private sector will be coming together to address exactly that question, designing a framework, and starting to align around that new agenda.”

Zahidi indicated that the policy will be set by attendees. “human capital agenda. Without adequate investments in skilling and in education, none of these opportunities can really play out, nor will we have the kind of societal resilience that is needed to be prepared for future inevitable shocks,” She said. “So we’ll have a meeting of the reskilling revolution champions.”

Concerning the “polycrisis,” The WEF compiled a comprehensive list of global threats. The following were the five top short-term risks. “cost-of-living crisis, natural disasters and extreme weather, geo-economic confrontation, failure to mitigate climate change, and erosion of social cohesion and societal polarization.” According to the report, if you look further ahead, “the top four most severe risks over the next 10 years are all environmental.”

The DEI report states that although $7.5 Billion has been spent on DEI reeducation programmes, this will rise to $15.4 Billion by 2026. “the pandemic has caused a generational loss in gender equality, increasing the projected time to reach global parity from 100 to 132 years.”

This photograph shows a view of Davos from the opening day at the World Economic Forum (WEF), in Davos on January 16, 2023. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images

Global Ambitions on the Line

Whereas previous WEF summits faced little outside opposition, this year’s summit may well be taking place in what Schwab called a more “fragmented” world. The fragmentation includes not only the Russia–Ukraine war and rising tensions between the United States and China but also dissent within the countries that have pledged allegiance to the WEF agenda.

What had been a unified, behind-the-scenes consensus in support of the WEF’s ESG agenda has recently been brought to light and challenged, particularly in the United States, where conservative states have pushed back with anti-ESG legislation, boycotts, anti-trust investigations, and lawsuits.

“All these elites come in to the World Economic Forum and basically their vision is they run everything and everybody else is just a serf,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said. The WEF’s energy and social-justice agenda is “really weakening Western society and Western values. But underlying a lot of that is the CCP [Chinese Communist Party].”

Europe is also experiencing friction. The conservative Brothers of Italy party in Italy was elected to power under the leadership of Georgia Meloni. His acceptance speech as prime Minister was censored YouTube, allegedly “in error.” A conservative coalition, led by Moderates in Sweden won the majority of seats in parliament.

Much of the resistance to WEF’s global ambitions stems from the fact that people are now beginning to feel the effects of the ESG agenda. The concerted effort against fossil-fuels has caused price increases and shortages. This has flowed through into other industries such as agriculture, manufacturing and transportation, which in turn have led to record inflation at the gas station and grocery stores.

Progressive government spending on social programs and stimulus payments, along with subsidies for renewable energy, further fuelled inflation. The flood of dollars and euros that chased fewer goods led central banks, especially the U.S. Federal Reserve to raise interest rates through 2022. This drove up debt costs and threatened to plunge the world economy into recession.

Mirek Dusek (WEF managing director) acknowledged that these issues put the ESG agenda under pressure.

“We’ve been deploying a lot of defensive measure in response to some of these cascading crises that have been manifesting themselves in the international system,” Dusek stated. “So how do we go on the front foot and really articulate and implement vision-driven, future-oriented business strategies and governmental policies that can help us be more resilient in the future?”

The Davos summit will reinforce this message by stating that climate change is the main cause of these problems.

“Climate change and ecosystem collapse are the biggest threats to humanity,” WEF managing director Gim Huay Neo stated. These are her five main areas of focus “getting to net zero, building a nature-positive economy, regenerating food, water and ocean systems, circular use of resources, and finally addressing waste and pollution.”

ESG Backlash

More evidence has been presented that the ESG ranks are faltering over the last year. BlackRock Asset Managers and State Street, who signed pledges to make companies move towards net-zero emissions through their shares, were flatly denied December 2022 by a Texas state senate hearing That they used their shareholders’ power to influence management toward ESG goals. Vanguard, the third shareholder, is also being used to influence management toward ESG goals. “Big Three” asset managers, withdrew its membership from the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative (NZAM).

Despite being subject to boycotts and inquiries from conservative states about discrimination against fossil fuel firms, Wall Street banks expressed support for the oil-and-gas industry and praised the billions of dollars they had invested in it. While the United States, under the Biden administration, has heavily spent on subsidies for wind, sun, and electric cars and put up many regulatory hurdles for fossil fuel companies, the courts often have a different view. checked the efforts the federal bureaucracy to establish industrial policy. The U.S. Supreme Court decision in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency It was stated that only Congress can pass laws on these important issues.

Klaus was nevertheless very proud of Klaus. “rising role of the state” In private industry and stated “The World Economic Forum is, as you know, the international organization for public–private cooperation, and public–private cooperations becomes even more essential today.” However, there could be some headwinds to this cooperation.

I guess there’s value to having a mixed government & commercial forum of some kind. WEF does kinda give me the willies though, but I’m sure everything is fine 👀.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 16, 2023

Concerns about government and corporations collaborating too closely were heightened by recent revelations that the FBI appears to have colluded with Twitter to censor news reports that could have hurt President Joe Biden’s election campaign. This week’s Davos guest list includes FBI Director Christopher Wray and U.S. Intelligence Director Avril Haines, though it is unclear what contribution America’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies will make to what is ostensibly an economic conference. And there are increasing doubts about expanding the state’s role into industrial policy and directing energy production, following Europe’s narrow escape from energy rationing this winter thanks only to unseasonably warm weather. The terrible mismanagement of COVID-19 was not good for the reputation of government officials, with lockdowns, censorship and attempts to force employees to quit the vaccine-refusing companies.

The 2023 agenda differs from the 2021 WEF summit. Its theme was “the Great Reset”; This term is no longer in use by its authors.

The WEF emphasizes the importance of “restore trust,” It remains to be determined if this means that the ties between guests on the guest list are strengthened or if it also includes the trust and confidence of the wider public which seems to have no vote or role in the decisions at Davos.

In a tweet Elon Musk, an industrialist, spoke out about the summit. “I guess there’s value to having a mixed government and commercial forum of some kind. The WEF does kind of give me the willies though, but I’m sure everything is fine …”

Kevin Stocklin, a former Wall Street banker and business reporter, is a film producer and producer. He produced and wrote “We All Fall Down: The American Mortgage Crisis,” A 2008 documentary about the collapse of the mortgage financing system. His most recent documentary was “The Shadow State,” A study of the ESG Industry.