Davos’ post-Covid return has full plate

Davos — the hub of an elite annual gathering in the Swiss Alps — is back this week, more than two years after the coronavirus pandemic kept its business gurus, political leaders and high-minded activists away.

There’s no shortage of urgent issues for the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting to tackle.

With their lofty ambition to help improve the state of the world, forum organisers have their work cut out for them: there are soaring food and fuel prices, Russia’s war in Ukraine, climate change, drought and food shortages in Africa, yawning inequality, and autocratic regimes gaining ground in some places.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was to speak on opening day today by video from Kyiv, while the country’s foreign minister and other top Ukrainian officials will be on hand. They’ll be joined this week by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, United States climate envoy John Kerry, Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

“There’s no business as usual,” forum President Borge Brende said.

“It is also climate change. It is also that the global growth is slowing, and we have to avoid that this very weak recovery ends with a new recession because we have very limited ammunition to fight a new recession. So much is at stake.”

Not everyone believe Davos is the place where solutions can be found.

A few dozen anti-capitalist demonstrators marched in Zurich, Switzerland’s largest city at the weekend, a sign of simmering antagonism against economic elites whom they accuse of putting profits over people.