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POLITICO at Davos: The World Economic Forum turns 50

Presented by Goldman Sachs

Davos Playbook

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Goldman Sachs

Good day and welcome to the 50th edition of the World Economic Forum — and another year of POLITICO’s Davos Playbook, the essential daily guide to life on the world’s most elite mountain.

Here is the WEF center stage program, with notes on which sessions are livestreamed (224 will be online).

This month is also the centenary of the Treaty of Versailles going into effect, and entirely timely, as Great Power competition seems to be making a big comeback. Will this year’s forum help foster a regrouping of liberal democracies away from trade wars and toward more diplomatic cooperation on issues like Iran, proliferation, etc? (U.S. President Donald Trump and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen are expected to meet here to talk tariffs.) And will the fires in Australia finally light a fire under the bums of the powers that be to take meaningful climate action?

**A message from Goldman Sachs: Goldman Sachs believes sustainable finance is where the world is going—it’s no longer on the sidelines, but increasingly core to a company’s business. That’s why sustainability has become a firmwide mandate with a focus on climate transition and inclusive growth. Learn more about the firm’s sustainable finance efforts.**

TOP TOPIC — CLIMATE CHANGE

GET ON THE GREEN TEAM OR GO HOME: Or that’s the stated goal at least. WEF is going all-in against climate change this year. With Australia reeling from catastrophic bushfires that have ravaged a huge chunk of its biodiversity, the theme could not be more relevant. Barely an hour will pass without a climate or broader sustainability session in the official program, never mind the extensive unofficial events and billboards that overtake the town.

WEF is also on its way to becoming climate activist Greta Thunberg’s amplifier-in-chief. The forum presents her ahead of Donald Trump and Angela Merkel in its list of high-profile speakers and reposts her articles, for example, including this Davos preview article in the Guardian, where Thunberg says: “Anything less than immediately ceasing these investments in the fossil fuel industry would be a betrayal of life itself.”

WEF’s alignment with Thunberg reflects many things, including the increasing concerns of WEF employees when it comes to the climate plans of companies and governments that WEF brings together year-round. “Heightened impatience” is how one polite Davos veteran staffer described the atmosphere to Playbook. Will peer pressure from all the discussions help CEOs and leaders put their money where their mouths are? Stay tuned.

Check out: This cartoon from Patrick Chappatte, entitled “When Greta Thunberg arrives in Davos,” sets the mood.

Top five global risks: Terrorism? Migration? Populism? Cyberattacks? Data safety? None of the above. This year’s WEF Global Risks Report shows that climate-related issues dominate all top five, long-term risks in terms of likelihood: extreme weather; biodiversity loss; climate action failure; natural disasters; and human-made environmental disasters.

CONTEXT OUTSIDE THE SNOW GLOBE: Geopolitical crises are never too far in the background, though. There’s a highly anticipated conference on Libya underway in Berlin as this Playbook hits your inboxes. Protests over corruption and demanding more self-determination are still raging in Lebanon, Iraq and Iran. And the Iran nuclear deal standoff, with the triggering of the dispute resolution mechanism, casts an ever-longer shadow over any discussions about peace and security, even though Iran’s Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif pulled out of the forum this year.

Expect a more heated tone in some forum sessions this year: Some CEOs as well as WEF staffers are losing their patience. Ibrahim AlHusseini, an early Tesla and Uber investor who now heads investment firm FullCycle, told Playbook’s Ryan Heath that businesses need to be guided by “ecosystem supremacy.” His view is that while it’s progress for the U.S. Business Roundtable to join WEF in advocating stakeholder interests alongside shareholder interests, it’s not enough.

“Even financial winners have to breathe the air. They’ll have to drink water,” he said. “They still live in this closed sphere [but] there is nowhere else to go. So everything has to be factored in from now on. We have the science, we have the data. We have the proof. Technologies are ready. There is more than enough money sloshing around to fix this. There is no excuse to keep kicking the can forward.”

Look out for more “climate heroes” (WEF’s words) this week who aren’t Greta. The teen category includes: Fionn Ferreira, who’s working to extract microplastics from water; Melati Wijsen, who led a ban on plastic bags, straws and styrofoam in Bali; and Autumn Peltier, the Anishinabek Nation’s 15-year-old chief water commissioner, in Canada. Adults include: Neel Tamhane, who leads a citizen tree-planting drive that’s put 9 billion trees in the ground in 27 cities in South Asia, and Jane Goodall, the primatologist who redefined the relationship between humans and animals

Half of economy dependent on nature: A new WEF analysis examining 163 industry sectors and their supply chains suggests “$44 trillion of economic value generation — over half the world’s total GDP — is moderately or highly dependent on nature and its services and, as a result, exposed to risks from nature loss. Construction ($4 trillion), agriculture ($2.5 trillion) and food and beverages ($1.4 trillion) are the three largest industries that depend most on nature.”

GUEST GUIDE

BY THE NUMBERS: By Bloomberg’s count, there are over 100 billionaires descending on Davos this week.

DAVOS A VICTIM OF ITS OWN SUCCESS? With every global conference now looking and feeling like Davos (think Halifax Security Forum, Munich Security Forum, German Marshall Fund conferences, NATO Engages, Doha Forum): What is Davos anymore? Decision-makers and experts seem to travel around a conference circuit tearing their hair out over populism on big white sofas arranged in semi-circles against blue backdrops. Then there are competitors who borrow liberally from the WEF format, such as Concordia Summit. And to top it off: there’s more programming outside the Congress Center than inside it, putting pressure on the WEF business model. The WEF’s success is making it a victim of global elite hyperinflation.

Cherchez les femmes: Gender parity hasn’t reached the Davos summit yet. There are 2,800 participants from more than 118 countries, according to the WEF, and yet only 24 percent are women. Some might say that’s progress (the WEF has been stuck at around 20 percent female participation for many years), but still not enough. WEF points out that this is more than the 21 percent share of ministerial posts women hold worldwide, and well above the ratio of female CEOs globally.

The radical new choice: Just stay home. More often than not, WEF press releases herald a record number of leaders and CEOs and ministers heading to Davos. This year the numbers are impressive — but flat: around 280 senior public leaders, including more than 50 national leaders. For corporate denizens of Davos, quite a few among Playbook’s contacts are skipping this year’s event with a shrug.

A more radical choice? A co-creator of Occupy Wall Street attending. “Rejecting Davos is easy when one has not been invited to attend,” Micah White writes. So he’s coming and committing “reputational suicide” — it’s all very dramatic, but in a constructive way. “What I discovered is that Davos is not one thing. There are many Davoses at Davos. And it is possible to reject one or more sides of the gathering while still finding revolutionary potential in another aspect of it,” White said. We’ll have to check in with him at the end to see how many of his goals he managed to achieve.

WHO’S COMING: 53 heads of state and government, including U.S. President Donald Trump (who skipped the event last year), German Chancellor Angela Merkel, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Parliament President David Sassoli, ECB President Christine Lagarde, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, Iraqi President Barham Salih, Prince Charles, Dutch PM Mark Rutte, Senegal’s President Macky Sall, NATO boss Jens Stoltenberg, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres and the heads of major U.N. organizations: the UNHCR, WTO, WFP, and the WHO.

WHO’S NOT: French President Emmanuel Macron, ever the disrupter, is still staying away — but not without having his own mini French Davos, called Choose France (cheekily taking advantage of CEOs coming to Davos to make a stop in Paris first and discover all the ways Macron says his reforms have improved the investment environment. At least that’s the Elysée’s pitch). Macron also heads on Tuesday to Israel and the Palestinian territories. He’ll be attending the 75th commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz.

This year Boris Johnson has gone as far as to ban his ministers from attending — except for Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid. The U.S. Congress delegation will be relatively small, thanks to the Democratic primary and impeachment process.

EU chief diplomat Josep Borrell was vocal about his non-attendance: “In Europe, everybody is rushing to Davos, but I think it is more important to be here,” Borrell said at the Raisina Dialogue on global governance in New Delhi. (A good handful of his fellow EU commissioners are actually going to Davos.)

WHAT THE MINISTRY OF TRUTH IS SHARING: The new Davos Manifesto, aka “A vision for a better kind of capitalism.” According to WEF officials, this isn’t just a PR stunt for the forum’s 50th anniversary, but the framework for the next decade of the WEF’s work.

It’s a kind of “Back to the Future” exercise, given that Klaus Schwab — the Founder and Executive Chairman of the WEF — has always advocated long-term sustainable capitalism (see his original 1973 Davos Manifesto ). And yet, it’s inescapable that in providing a platform for engagement with all manner of CEOs and controversial regimes, Davos isn’t just a place of consensus and dialogue — it’s also a platform used by those leaders for reputational airbrushing. That leads Playbook to ask: Is Davos one of the reasons we need a new type of capitalism?

‘CEO disease’: Perhaps another incentive for a new type of capitalism might be selfish? The coterie of the world’s most powerful and wealthiest will be told this week, by Dr. Marta Ra of Paracelsus Recovery, a leading psychiatric treatment center in London, that the very traits that make exceptional senior executives — tenacity, resilience, risk-taking — are also linked to addiction, depression and anxiety. The clinic has identified a 500 percent increase in referrals of CEOs in the last seven years, with bipolar disorder becoming increasingly prevalent, according to the Telegraph. And the WEF is devoting several sessions this year to mental health. After all, the clinics in Davos that a century ago treated tuberculosis, as made famous in a certain Thomas Mann novel, are now treating burnout and depression.

DAVOS ESSENTIALS

CHECK YOUR RESERVATION … if you’re booked at Hotel Bünda: The establishment changed management in November. But the previous one had already sold rooms for WEF week, Blick newspaper reported. And many of those affected will first find out when trying to check in: “When we first came to the hotel, the servers were empty,” the new manager told the paper. “We could not find out who had already booked and paid for rooms. That’s why we couldn’t get in touch with the people concerned.” Seems you’re safe and will get a room if you’ve made a reservation via the WEF’s own service provider.

Street sleeping in Davos: If Hotel Bünda guests find themselves homeless, they won’t be the only ones sleeping on the streets. Despite the below-freezing temperatures (more like -15 Celsius or 0 degrees Fahrenheit), Homelessness Entrepreneur, an NGO that campaigns to help the homeless use and gain skills to build new lives, will have its activists sleeping out on the streets starting Monday. The contrast between the private jets of the WEF set and those in their sleeping bags will be stark. Playbook’s Ryan Heath will be joining them, more in Tuesday’s Playbook.

Somewhere in between: Not everyone stays in hotels when attending Davos, or on the street. In fact, many stay in apartments in town or a trek away. And it’s not exactly fancy-ville. Behold WEF Managing Director Adrian Monck’s “glamorous” digs.

PEAK DAVOS: Arctic Basecamp, a “unique high-profile science-solutions pop-up platform.” That’s Davos for: We need to go green. Launching Monday at 2 p.m., Berghotel Schatzalp.

DAVOS BILLBOARDS GUARANTEED TO MAKE YOU CRINGE: The 2020 audacity award must go to Saudi Arabia. Their slogan is “Saudi Arabia: Now Live.” If only we could say the same for murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Other examples of visual pain inflicted on the 0.1 percent include:

“Nothing affects the climate more than the status quo” — Hanwha, a Korean conglomerate.

“Empowering Trust” — JD.com, China’s largest online retailer.

“The bridge to possible” — Cisco.

OVERHEARD: “So then I booked the private plane via WhatsApp. That’s how everything happens in Saudi, it’s just quicker. You know what I forgot? Dry shampoo!”

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to WEF: Young Global Leader and U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg.

PRO TIP — DRESS CODE: You’re spending a week on a mountain. Besides the obvious need for sensible snow shoes, make sure you wear layers and make at least one other concession to your setting. Maybe it’s a sweater, a jacket with a faux-fur-lined hood, or some statement boots. Whatever you do, don’t storm around the mountain in a suit alone. It doesn’t impress anyone: it makes you look like a tone-deaf first-timer.

SKI REPORT: It’s expected to be sunny and chilly Monday. Higher up, on the ski slopes, expect a frigid -15 Celsius. It snowed all morning Sunday, with low visibility at times. The pavements are slushy rather than icy across Davos town.

STUCK IN KLOSTERS? If you’re not staying in Davos itself, you’re either VVIP and paying for privacy, or you booked late or are on a budget. Never fear: try the Chesa Grischuna, an old haunt of Hollywood stars and royals. If a 25-minute train ride schedule isn’t convenient, the WEF shuttle leaves from Piz Buin and opposite the train station from 6 a.m. each morning, and runs until midnight (2.5 hours longer than the trains run).

ACTIVITY GUIDE

HOTTEST TICKETS: We’ll keep you up to date each morning, but we’re willing to bet Priyanka Chopra Jonas will have an edge in grabbing attention when she urges leaders to end extreme poverty. If you want to join her Tuesday, you can sign up for the “Reimagining the World’s Biggest Challenges” lunch (hosted by Global Citizen and Teneo) here.

THE PARTY WARS: Cloudflare saw the gap left by Google giving up on their annual Davos party and zoomed right into it last year. They were determined to win the crown of best Davos closing party from Salesforce (many say they succeeded), and this year they’ve co-opted Hotel Europe’s karaoke piano bar legend Barry, and set him up as the social sub-brand of Cloudflare Haus, at Promenade 37. On Thursday night, Jason Derulo will top the Cloudflare party bill.

Freuds’ Davos House will once again be the nightcap venue of choice each night. The PR agency runs Sustainable Development Goals-themed programming until the bubbles and cocktails flow. The question on everyone’s lips: After bringing over five-star sushi chefs from London in 2019, what will they do to whet appetites this year?

If you can’t make it across the river to Davos House, try Davos Cannabis House — for market research only, of course. This important emerging market can be found at Promenade 69.

TUNES: Davos veterans know there’s never a shortage of records spinning. So this year we’ll have Playbook Songs for the Day. Send us the song that’ll be playing between your ears this week. In the spirit of this year’s theme, let’s kick it off with two songs, one for the stakeholders, all of them, including the Salt of The Earth, and one for the climate — because what is a Green Davos without snow? Special thanks to Bruno Tertrais, deputy director of the Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique, for the suggestions.

**A message from Goldman Sachs: Over the next 10 years, Goldman Sachs will target $750 billion of financing, investing and advisory activity to nine areas that focus on climate transition and inclusive growth. Because, at Goldman Sachs, they believe sustainable finance is where the world is going — it is no longer on the sidelines, but increasingly core to a company’s business. As part of this push, Goldman Sachs is committed to helping clients position themselves for a future in which sustainability is core to all industries and integrated across markets — making sustainable finance a firmwide mandate, to achieve an inclusive, low-carbon economy. Learn more about Goldman Sachs’ newly announced sustainable finance goal.**

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