The green issues to watch at Davos 2024

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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Greetings from Davos, where the sun has been sparkling on fresh(ish) snow in recent days, creating a startlingly beautiful backdrop to this year’s annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. The mood is likely to be darker inside the Congress Centre this week: conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine, surging populism and concern about artificial intelligence will dominate the agenda.

Yesterday the traffic to Davos was stopped by angry protests from environmental and social activists, who accuse the WEF elite of being dangerously complacent about the climate risks and inequalities. Or as one placard declared: “WEF, WTF?”

It is easy to see why those protesters are angry: the acronym “ESG” has all but disappeared from the agenda this year amid a right-wing backlash. But there will still be plenty of debate about renewable energy, ethical issues around AI, human rights and development challenges. Read us on Wednesday and Friday for updates. And if you are in Davos, join us for a series of FT events, including drinks receptions and briefings — or watch The Davos Daily Show online for key insights. View all events and register for free here.

Climate fears add urgency to the green tech debate

Green tech will be a top issue for debate at Davos this week, with the WEF agenda featuring numerous sessions on renewable energy. And on that front, there are two pieces of surprisingly good news. Firstly, renewable energy capacity is now surging faster than expected — even amid the right-wing, anti-green backlash — according to a recent report from the International Energy Agency last week.

Secondly, it seems that green tech is winning widespread public acceptance, at least according to the Edelman public relations group (which, along with some other PR firms, has faced a steady stream of criticism over its own green credentials, due to its work with clients in the fossil fuel sector). Each year it surveys thousands of people around the world to see what they do (or do not) trust. And while this “trust barometer” series looks to some like a clever marketing exercise for Edelman’s own brand, its results can make for interesting reading.

This year’s survey, released on Sunday, was pretty depressing overall: public faith in western government, media and business institutions is low, with Britain displaying a particularly sharp decline. Even non-governmental organisations are in trouble: only 54 per cent of people say they trust NGOs to tell the truth about new innovations — a level slightly higher than for journalists and government officials, but worse than “a person like me” (ie someone’s peer group) and business.

The public is also leery of some controversial areas of innovation: a mere 30, 29 and 14 per cent of people are willing to embrace new technologies such as AI, gene-based medicine and genetically modified foods, respectively — while 35, 34 and 58 per cent reject them.

However, environmental innovation is different: 54 per cent of people say they will embrace green tech — and only 13 per cent reject it. This might reflect the fact that 76 per cent of people say they are worried about climate change, slightly more than the percentage who say they worry about nuclear war. But it has probably also been stoked by the rising public exposure to innovations such as solar panels and electric vehicles. Either way, it is noteworthy.

And here is another interesting point to consider: if you look at a survey that the WEF itself does each year of 1,500 of its members about future risks, climate change issues are now more dominant than ever. In the short term (ie the next two years), environmental risks sit alongside misinformation, geopolitical conflict and cyber threats as the topics that worry WEF delegates. However, in the longer term (ie the next 10 years), environmental themes take the top five places in the list of issues that are keeping WEF delegates awake at night.

That will not placate the protesters gathering outside Davos; after all, those in the WEF elite have not yet managed to turn their alarm into sufficient action that can stop, let alone reverse, global warming. But this scale of recognition is striking — and encouraging. Fingers crossed it produces something tangible this week.

This morning, the Financial Times published its awards for responsible business in education. One of the research winners has been previously cited in this newsletter. As Republican states have raced to enact laws boycotting certain financial firms over ESG investing, researchers Daniel Garrett and Ivan Ivanov showed that the intervention led to higher costs in increased interest and fees. The authors estimated that a boycott law in Texas cost taxpayers $303mn to $532mn. Read more about all the winners here.

Smart read

John Kerry, the US climate envoy, is to step down in the next few months to help with President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign, Aime Williams reports from Washington. Over the past three years, Kerry’s working relationship with Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua has been a key element in climate diplomacy between the world’s two biggest carbon emitters.