The Davos razzmatazz is gone, but the issues are more urgent than ever

theguardian.com:

It is January 2020. Donald Trump and Greta Thunberg are the star turns at the annual festival of globalisation organised by the World Economic Forum in Davos. The fossil fuel-loving president and the teenage environmentalist have a pop at each other. There are reports of a new virus emerging from China but Covid barely gets a mention.

Much has happened since. For a second year running, Davos is not going ahead in person. US billionaires will not be parking their private jets at Zurich airport. The skies above the ski resort made famous by Thomas Mann in the Magic Mountain will not be thick with helicopters. Hotels will not be able to charge five times their normal rates for a captive audience of policymakers, business leaders, academics, campaigners, journalists and assorted hangers-on.

Let’s face it: few of us are going to miss being lectured about the need to tackle global heating from those with the biggest carbon footprints, or watching company bosses who do all they can to avoid paying tax shed crocodile tears about the lack of decent schools, skilled workers and public infrastructure.

That said, the issues that were salient at the 2020 Davos have not gone away. In many respects, the trends have worsened in the past two years.

Take inequality, where there has been a widening of the gap between rich and poor, both within countries and between them. The sort of people who attend Davos have been insulated from the worst of the pandemic and, in many cases, have actually prospered from it. Academics, journalists, PR consultants have all been able to work in relative safety at home while less well-remunerated frontline workers have put themselves at risk.

Stimulus policies pursued by central banks – zero interest rates and