Christine Lagarde and the Davos elite

Views From the Marsh - David Owen

In Kim Stanley Robinson’s excellent book on how a Swiss international organization, the “Ministry of the Future”, acts to address climate change, Davos is seen as part of the problem, not the solution.

Hence, we were interested to see the FT’s article “Christine Lagarde discussed leaving ECB early to head WEF, says Klaus Schwab” (see here), given that in her role as President of the ECB, she has, alongside her colleagues, seemed to be on a mission to put climate change front and centre of what central banks inside the Eurosystem need to be focused on - not just on financial stability grounds, but also as far as monetary policy is concerned (climate change may well be referenced again in the ECB’s press conference this Thursday).

Her views are in marked contrast to those, for example, of the former Governor of the BoE, Mervyn King, who made his views clear again at the BoE Watchers’ conference a few days ago. Or, at present, the Fed that has pulled out of the NGFS, despite the fact tha…