DAVOS, Switzerland — The most recent news about the meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland:
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez warned against the rise of far-right political movements in the European Union and called for unity to fight what he called “the rotten seeds” that Russian President Vladimir Putin had planted in our countries.
In a speech at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday, Sánchez talked about how worried he was that far-right political parties would be able to get into institutions and destroy the EU from the inside.
The leader of the socialist party says that he is especially worried about it “in those countries where these far-right forces have the support of the main conservative parties, which are opening the doors of governments for them.”
He didn’t talk about any country or political party in particular.
The socialist leader on the center-left will have to run for office this year. Early polls show that the main conservative leader of the opposition would need the help of a hard-right party to take Sánchez’s place.
Several people in charge of minerals and mining and in the government say there aren’t enough of the important metals and minerals needed to move the clean energy transition forward.
Anne-Laure de Chammard, a member of Siemens Energy AG’s executive board and executive vice president, said at a Davos panel on Tuesday that financing is no longer a problem for clean energy. “The supply chain and the availability of precious metals are,” she said.
Mike Henry, the CEO of the huge mining company BHP Group Ltd., says that because mines are closing down, the world will need a lot more copper, cobalt, and nickel.
Jeremy Weir, chair and CEO of the huge commodities trading company Trafigura Group Pte Ltd., said that the biggest problem for a miner is getting more metals and minerals out of the ground faster.
Some of the most valuable minerals in the world are found in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. But President Félix-Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo, who was also on the panel, said that investors are scared off by violence and illegal mining in the eastern part of the country.
©According to The Associated Press.
He also said that international mining companies need to give our communities more “things that will make their everyday lives better,” like schools and hospitals.
KEY DEVELOPMENTS:
— The first lady of Ukraine wants leaders to use their power to stop the war.
— The head of the EU gives a plan for clean technology to compete with China and the US
— The World Food Program delays, but does not stop, the famine in Somalia
— Elon Musk wasn’t on the Davos guest list, it seems.
Kyrsten Sinema, a U.S. senator, says democracy is still alive even though she won’t get rid of the filibuster so Democrats can pass voting rights laws before the 2022 election.
©According to The Associated Press.
Sinema says, “Then we had a free and fair election” because Congress didn’t pass the voting rights bill. She spoke Tuesday at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland. She was on a panel with lawmakers and governors from both parties.
Sinema is a senator from Arizona who is known for making deals with people from both parties. Her support for a Senate rule that requires support from 60% of lawmakers to pass most legislation was a major source of tension in her tense relationship with Democrats, who worry that allies of former U.S. President Donald Trump will try to mess with elections.
Sinema left the Democratic Party at the end of last year and became an independent as her first term was coming to an end. She hasn’t said if she will run again in 2024 or not.
The senator from Arizona also said that “one political party’s push to get rid of an important safety net and institution in our country may have been too soon and too far-reaching in order to get the short-term wins they wanted.”
She gave a high-five to Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who was also against getting rid of the filibuster rule.
Sinema said that the country should use the time when the government is split to deal with extreme partisanship.
Lawmakers from both parties said they are sure the U.S. will keep helping Ukraine fight Russia, even though some lawmakers want to stop the help.
Rep. Mara Elvira Salazar, a Republican from Florida, said, “We’re going to liberate Europe in 2023, just like we did in 1945. We know that’s what we have to do.”
Even though Elon Musk, who owns Twitter, says he was there, the World Economic Forum says he wasn’t. The annual meeting of business executives, world leaders, and cultural trend-setters was held in Davos, Switzerland.
Even though Musk says he was invited, he is not one of the famous people meeting in the posh Alpine town this week to talk about global issues.
Tuesday, Forum spokesman Yann Zopf said that wasn’t true, saying that the last time the CEO of Tesla was invited was “not this year and not recently, but in 2015.” Zopf says that Musk has never signed up for the annual meeting or been there.
Musk said in a tweet on December 22 that he didn’t want to go to Davos because it seemed boring.
He didn’t say when he got the invitation, but the timing of the tweet made it seem like it was this year. The Associated Press asked Musk for a comment Tuesday, but he didn’t answer right away.
Henry Kissinger, a former U.S. Secretary of State, has repeated comments he made last year that Ukraine should consider giving up land to stop Russia’s invasion. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has criticised this idea.
Kissinger spoke via video link at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday. He said that different lines will need to be drawn to stop the war from getting worse. The 99-year-old man said again that a “cease-fire along the lines of invasion is a reasonable result of the military actions and not necessarily the result of a later peace negotiation.”
He said that the U.S. should help Ukraine and give it more military aid until a cease-fire line is found or agreed upon in talks. He says this would also give Russia a chance to get back into the international system and think about how much it depends on military force.
Kissinger says that if Russia were to fall apart as a country, the nuclear-armed territory would be open to both internal fighting and outside interference.
He praised Zelenskyy’s bravery and the bravery of the Ukrainian people. Kissinger said that he used to be against Ukraine joining NATO because he was afraid it would lead to a war with Russia. However, he now thinks that “Ukrainian membership in NATO would also be an appropriate outcome” of the process he describes for ending the fighting.
Leaders in Ukraine don’t want to give up any land. Kissinger’s comments from last year made Zelenskyy say that it was the same as European countries letting Nazi Germany take over parts of Czechoslovakia in 1938 to stop Adolf Hitler from being too aggressive.
Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin says that if Russia wins the war in Ukraine, it will show that invading another country is a good way to get land or natural resources.
She says that Europe and other Western democracies should tell Putin, “We will support Ukraine for as long as it takes—five years, ten years, fifteen years, whatever it takes—we will support Ukraine, and this will not stop.”
Marin added Tuesday at a meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that “it’s up to the Ukrainians to decide when they’re ready to negotiate and when they’re ready to make a peace deal.”
https://www.weforum.org/events/world-economic-forum-annual-meeting-2023/?url=https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/12/how-to-follow-davos-2023/%3Fsrc%3Ddynamic_gad&gclid=CjwKCAiAzp6eBhByEiwA_gGq5FxcKGaneZ-cLT068vEEh-NADXUonRsP0tdmCKrngnDaoR6od9-hPBoCb9MQAvD_BwE
She says that “the story could have been very different” if Western allies had done more when Russia illegally took over the Crimea peninsula in Ukraine in 2014.
A country in the European Union that has a long border with Russia wants to join NATO. Marin says that Finland thought it was best for its own safety to stay out of the alliance, but then it saw that “Russia is attacking another neighbour, and we can’t depend on that relationship anymore, so we have to look for a partner somewhere else.”
All 30 NATO countries must agree for Finland and Sweden to join the Western military alliance. Only Turkey and Hungary haven’t signed up yet. Turkey wants the Nordic countries to do more to fight terrorism.
Marin says she talked to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who told her, “There aren’t big problems with Finland, maybe with Sweden.” She said that Finland and Sweden must both join NATO at the same time.
The head of the World Food Program, which won the Nobel Peace Prize, says that donations from countries like the United States and Germany have helped put off famine in Somalia, but not completely stop it.
But David Beasley, the head of the WFP, said, “We’re not out of this yet.”
He told The Associated Press that years of drought have had “unprecedented effects on the climate” in the Horn of Africa, and that the U.N. agency was ready to declare famine in Somalia before donors “stepped up in magnificent ways.”
Beasley warned on Tuesday at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, that “we still could end up with a famine in Somalia” because there are already “famine-like conditions.”
When Beasley started his job in 2017, about 80 million people around the world were on the verge of starvation and lived with hunger every day. Because of economic damage and breaks in the supply chain caused by war, climate change, and COVID-19, that number has grown to 350 million today.
The head of the International Monetary Fund is warning that letting international tensions split up the global economy could cost trillions of dollars in lost growth.
During the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva told business and political leaders to “wake up” and work to keep global trade going, even as they try to protect their supply sources from disruption.
Georgieva says that the pandemic and Russia’s war in Ukraine showed that businesses need to get parts and raw materials from more than one place.
But the smart thing to do is “keep that at a level that makes the world economy more stable and doesn’t pull the world into a place where we’ll all be poorer and less safe.”
If supply chains were reorganised in a way that didn’t hurt trade, it would only slow global growth by 0.2% of global output. But if trade stops, that could grow to 7% of the world economy, or $7 trillion, which is bigger than the economies of Japan and Germany combined.
“My fear is that we are snoozing our way into this world. But, hey, look, here’s Davos! Wake up! Do what’s right!” she said, which made everyone cheer.
Two top Ukrainian officials said that making changes to the economy to attract investors can’t wait until the war is over, even though utility workers are working hard to fix infrastructure that Russian missiles have damaged.
Oleksiy Chernyshov, the head of the state energy company Naftogaz, said that cutting red tape and reforming the country’s legal system will be key to finding new investment to help rebuild the country.
He spoke Tuesday at a panel on Ukraine’s future at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland. He was on the panel with First Deputy Prime Minister and Economy Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko.
Svyrydenko said that “on the second day after the victory,” the goal of the government is to make Ukraine a popular place for investors.
Before the war, it was hard for Ukraine to stop politically connected business people called oligarchs from having too much power and to change its laws.
Economists who are working on rebuilding the country say that the war is a chance to speed up reforms by making them a matter of patriotism and national survival.
Samantha Power, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, announced that USAID would be providing more support for the Global Alliance for Trade Facilitation.
Power, speaking during a panel discussion on democracy Tuesday at World Economic Forum’s gathering in Davos, Switzerland, said the programme was developed in conjunction with the forum, with the private sector saying business is hard to do certain countries and asking USAID and other government actors to make it easier.
She says “we’re going to surge support to Ecuador, Tanzania, countries like that again are doing those hard things to try to facilitate trade and not merely again the classic tool toolkit for democracy promotion.”
Power said many countries are taking difficult steps to address problems as they try to implement political reforms. She said those efforts could be helped by public-private partnerships.
She urged businesses to check about investment opportunities in countries that are “doing hard things, that are fighting for more transparency, fighting those anti-democratic forces.”
Polish President Andrzej Duda says efforts to build an international coalition that could send “at least an armoured brigade” to Ukraine “will take some time.”
Duda stressed that Ukraine is asking for modern Western weapons and tanks as it has been fighting for Russia’s invasion since February and is “counting on the allies to each give a few or about a dozen tanks.
Speaking to Polish reporters after a panel at he World Economic Forum gathering in Davos, Switzerland, he said he’s counting on Finland and on other European countries, including Germany, which have Leopard tanks.
Duda stressed that Germany’s permission will be required for the German-made Leopard tanks to be handed over to Ukraine.
Britain has offered to provide its Challenger tanks, with Duda expressing thanks for the U.K. government.
Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore emphasised the need to reform multilateral development banks if the world wants to rapidly decarbonize and meet its climate goals.
He pointed to the World Bank, whose leader David Malpass faced criticism in September for not directly answering when asked whether the burning of fossil fuels has contributed to global warming. He said instead, “I’m not a scientist.”
He has denied Gore’s claims that he doesn’t believe in climate change. During a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday, Fore said, “We are fooling ourselves if we have a global system for allocating capital that keeps the vast majority of people in developing countries from having any meaningful access.”
Gore says that 88% of the expected rise in greenhouse gas emissions will come from the developing world. However, most of these countries don’t have access to private capital right now.
He said that, for example, people in Nigeria have to pay interest rates that are seven times higher than those in Europe or North America.
The leader of the Belarus opposition says that a trial against her that is starting in Minsk is “a farce,” and she still doesn’t know what she is being charged with.
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya told The Associated Press on Tuesday at the World Economic Forum meeting in the Swiss town of Davos that she feared Belarus was being “overlooked” by the war in Ukraine. She also warned that there would be no stability in the area without a democratic Belarus.
Political leaders, business executives, and people who set cultural trends will come together to talk about the problems facing a divided world as 2023 begins.
Tsikhanouskaya said she would be happy to meet with Olena Zelenska, the first lady of Ukraine, who is also at the meeting, or with the Ukrainian government. However, she said she understood the sensitivity of the situation and the fears that it could upset Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko.
After nearly three years of lockdowns, quarantines, and strict COVID-19 containment measures, China’s Vice Premier Liu He gave a positive outlook for the world’s second largest economy.
Liu, a senior economic official in China’s State Cabinet, spoke at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday. He said, “If we work hard enough, we are confident that China’s growth will most likely return to its normal trend in 2023. The Chinese economy will get better in a big way.”
Liu said that in the coming months, China hopes to see a big increase in its imports, more investment by businesses, and a return to normal consumption habits. He says that easing restrictions on COVID and getting rid of quarantines for people coming from other countries are important parts of the economy’s recovery.
China released data on Tuesday that showed that China’s economy grew at its second-lowest rate in at least 40 years last year. This was because anti-virus controls and a real estate slump hurt the economy.
In 2022, China’s economy grew by 3%, which was less than half of the 8.1% growth rate of the year before. After 2020, when growth dropped to 2.4%, that was the second-lowest annual rate since at least the 1970s.
Liu said that the government was working hard to fix the problem, especially by helping the real estate industry, which makes up 40% of all bank loans and 50% of local government revenue. After years of rapid economic growth, he says China’s goal is “high quality economic development,” which means reforming state-owned companies and helping the private sector.
He also said that China was still committed to its goals for reducing carbon emissions and improving the environment. China has said that its carbon output will reach a peak by 2030 and that it will have no carbon output by 2060. He says that China will do this by using a mix of clean energy sources.
China puts out the most carbon dioxide of any country in the world, and most of its energy comes from coal.
John Kerry, the U.S. climate envoy, says that even though philanthropies around the world have given almost $1 trillion to different causes over the last few years, only 2% of this money goes toward climate action.
During a panel discussion on Tuesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, he said that between $7.5 billion and $12.5 billion of charitable giving around the world goes toward climate action. He and others called on philanthropies from all over the world to work together and do more to fight climate change.
“How do we get there, then?” Kerry asked how the world’s climate goals could be kept alive. He replied, “Well, the lesson I’ve learned in the last year is that money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money.”
The GAEA’s Call to Action, a new global effort by the World Economic Forum to get more donations to pay for climate action, was also launched at the panel session.
The European Union is moving forward with a huge clean tech industrial plan. This plan should keep the continent at the forefront of making plans for a greener future, and it should also keep the continent’s economy going in the face of competition from China and the United States.
Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the EU Commission, gave an outline of her “Green Deal Industrial Plan.” This plan will make it much easier to get subsidies for green industries and combine EU-wide projects that get a lot of money to help them grow as the EU works toward its goal of being climate neutral by 2050.
Von der Leyen said on Tuesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that the 27-country bloc will fight unfair trade practises much more forcefully, whether they come from Washington or, more importantly, from Beijing.
Von der Leyen’s plan will now be the main topic of discussion among the member countries before their 27 leaders meet to talk about the issue on Feb. 9 and 10.
As the anniversary of the war in Ukraine approaches, Ukraine’s first lady spoke out against Russia. She said that parents are crying as they watch doctors try to save their children, farmers are afraid to go back to their fields that are full of explosive mines, and “we can’t let a new Chernobyl happen.”
In a speech on Tuesday at the World Economic Forum meeting in the Swiss town of Davos, Olena Zelenska also told government leaders and business executives that they don’t always use their power to do enough.
Since the war was making prices go up and making it harder for people in developing countries to get food, she said that mass starvation was “an insult to mankind and human nature.”
She says that the war could spread outside of Ukraine and make things worse, but that “unity is what brings peace back.”
Zelenska says she brought letters from Ukrainian leaders to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and to Chinese President Xi Jinping. She will give these letters to Vice Premier Liu He, who is speaking at Davos on Tuesday along with von der Leyen.
The head of the International Energy Agency says that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has made more people want to use renewable energy, because people are worried about both the environment and the security of their energy supply.
But IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said Tuesday during a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that investments in clean energy are still a long way behind what is needed.
He says that because Russia isn’t supplying as much oil and natural gas as it used to, “energy security is the biggest driver of growth in renewable energy today, because homegrown renewables are the energy of peace.”
Birol pointed to the move toward battery-powered cars as a sign of progress. He said that in 2019, only 3 out of every 100 cars sold were battery-powered, but that number rose to 13% last year. He says that by 2030, every other car in the biggest markets will be electric.
He was glad to see support from governments like the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act and the EU’s Fit for 55 goals, but he warned that the efforts of rich countries won’t be enough if developing countries can’t afford to switch to energy sources that release less carbon dioxide and change the climate.
Birol says that right now, for every $1 spent on fossil fuels, $1.50 is spent on clean energy. “If we want to reach our goal, the ratio needs to be one to nine,” he says.
Polish President Andrzej Duda thinks that one day the German government will agree to send powerful Leopard tanks to Ukraine. He says that Germany’s membership in NATO and growing public support for Ukrainians hurt by Russia’s war are two reasons why this will happen.
During a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday, the Polish leader made a joke: “We don’t say that Ukraine will win this war; we say that Ukraine will not lose this war.” He then laughed.
Gitanas Nauseda, who was from Lithuania, quickly replied, “I say that Ukraine will win this war.”
Nearly a year into the war, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been calling for more tanks and air defence systems from the West.
Duda said that the fact that NATO members like Britain have promised to send modern tanks to Ukraine was a “important moment.” This could change how Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government thinks about the situation.
Scholz, who is speaking at Davos on Wednesday, said that Germany will “carefully consider every step” and talk with its allies about sending more weapons to Ukraine.
Duda also said that the German public’s support for Ukraine was getting “stronger and stronger and stronger,” and he hoped that would lead to the “very needed decision” to send Leopards to Ukraine.
