Guest
Special Address by President von der Leyen at the Davos Agenda Week. Thank you very much, dear Klaus, Thank you, Ladies and Gentlemen, for inviting me again, And indeed, it is worth looking back. When I was with you in Davos a year ago, Donald Trump's visit was at the centre of attention. And we were worried about the stability of our global alliances. And climate activist Greta Thunberg was also on top of a guest list full of stars. And indeed, my speech focused on the European Green Deal and of course Digitalisation. But at that time, other news very quietly were coming to us from China and they were barely noticed by most of us. Few suspected at the time that this would be the start of a pandemic that a year later would still hold us in its grip. #WEF #WEF2021 #WEF21 #Davos #Davos20 #DAVOS2021 #EUatDavos And yet, there were signs in Davos last January. Richard Hatchett, for example, the former White House pandemic advisor, he was a lone voice when he said: ‘This is not a Chinese problem. This is a problem for the whole world.' And he was to be proven right. And a year ago, my bilateral talks revolved primarily around the question: Would, for example, the U.S. government impose punitive tariffs on European carmakers? Today, a year later, we are worrying about whether democracy itself might have been permanently damaged in the last four years. And images, like we saw a few weeks ago when an angry mob stormed the Capitol, were beyond my imagination. And yet, the dangers that social media poses to our democracy were also already discussed in Davos. I remember sitting in a basement restaurant of my hotel with, among others, the business journalist Rana Foroohar and the former Google developer Tristan Harris. And you might have seen some of them in the documentary ‘The Social Dilemma' – I can only recommend it. At that time, the activists warned about the business models of big tech companies and the consequences for our democracy. And they described how the economic laws of social media are eating away at the fabric of our society. And how fake news, driven by algorithms, spread six times faster than real news. They pinned their hopes on Europe. Because the European Union had already proven that it is able to set standards that are respected around the world, such as with our General Data Protection Regulation – the GDPR. So the warning signs were already there in Davos. Ladies and Gentlemen, There is no better place than the World Economic Forum to find out about the major trends in our society. To be updated on what is keeping up at night entrepreneurs and philanthropists, or managers and the NGO community. To see how policymakers look at the future. But sometimes you just have to listen carefully. And this year, the World Economic Forum is once again asking the right questions with your initiative, Klaus, ‘The Great Reset'. We must learn from this crisis. We have to change the way we live and do business, to be able to keep what we value and hold dear. If temperatures keep rising and nature keeps disappearing, we will see more natural disasters and zoonotic diseases. We have spoken a lot about the links between biodiversity loss and COVID-19. Now we must move to action. To understand why, I want you to accompany me to a remote village in Guinea, just for a minute. There, a young boy playing next to a tree some years ago, is thought to have been the first victim of one of the worst outbreaks of Ebola. A hollow tree had been infested by bats. The animals had been pushed towards the village, because 80% of forests in the region had been destroyed. We do not know exactly what happened there. But what we do know is that the boy became gravely ill and died a little later, as did his sister and his pregnant mother. And we do know just how tragic the repercussions were across Africa and the world. And if we do not urgently act to protect our nature, the next pandemic will be around the corner. And to those who prefer the business case. Here it is: More than half of global GDP is dependent on high-functioning biodiversity and ecosystems – and it is from food to tourism, you just name it. And in the latest World Economic Forum Global Risk Report, the top five global risks are all related to the environment. Almost three quarters of the Earth's surface have been altered and we see the changes in our everyday lives: Less wilderness and wildlife, increasing temperatures and extreme weather. And these developments are different sides of the same coin. #eudebates
