Anti-WEF protestors demand higher taxes and climate action

Some 300 people gathered to demonstrate against the WEF in Davos. This is more than the number of people who protested at the WEF meeting in May but less than in previous years. © Keystone / Gian Ehrenzeller

A day ahead of the opening of the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting, some 300 people have taken to the streets of Davos demanding climate justice.

Under the slogan “Tax the Rich, save the Climate”, some 300 demonstrators from the Swiss Socialist Youth (JUSO) and the association Strike WEF gathered in Davos to demand a climate tax on the super-rich attending the WEF annual meeting. They were joined by activists from Greenpeace and the German town of Lützerath, which has become a climate flashpoint amid plans to expand a coal mine in the area.

Nicola Siegrist, president of JUSO, said that the revenues from the climate tax should be used to support a social climate policy. “The rich must pay, because they are the ones who benefit most from the system that caused the climate crisis,” said Siegrist. The demonstrators also demanded cancelling the debt of countries in the global South.

The demonstration in Davos is the end of a two-day winter walk for climate justice organised by Strike WEF that started in the village of Küblis, about 23 kilometres by foot from Davos.

“WEF participants represent a system that cannot work. The WEF is dominated by greenwashing, etiquette fraud and empty slogans,” said Gian Wacker, media spokesman for the Strike WEF collective, in a press release. “Behind it is a hard-nosed profit logic. This pursuit of profit is mercilessly carried out on the backs of the community and the climate.”

More than 370 public figures, including 52 heads of state are expected at the WEF annual meeting in Davos. Some 60 CEOs from across sectors and the globe are also on the attendee list.