The World Economic Forum’s annual gathering is all set to begin on January 21st, 2020 in Davos, Switzerland with climate change and how to tackle it at the top of the bill.

Around 3,000 of the world’s richest and most powerful people will attend the gathering at a picturesque skiing village in the Swiss mountains. US President Donald Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are among 53 heads of state or government who will be attending the forum. 

However, all eyes are on Trump and teen climate change activist Greta Thunberg. For the first time, the Twitter battle is expected to come to life on January 21st, 2020 onstage in Davos.

Trump is slated to give a special address at the conference of the world and business leaders at 11 am local time on January 21st, 2020. Two hours later, Thunberg, who has been named Time Magazine’s ‘Person of the Year’, will open debate at the four-day annual gathering on how to avert a ‘climate apocalypse’.

Both the President, who has repeatedly expressed scepticism about climate change, and Thunberg, global climate change icon, have exchanged barbs through Twitter in the recent past. A chance encounter at the meet cannot be ruled out.

In September 2019, Trump shared a video of Thunberg angrily addressing world leaders, along with her quote that “people are dying, entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction”.

Thunberg will also attend a meeting at the forum, where she will once again highlight the message that the governments across the globe are failing to wake up to the reality of climate change.

She along with other activists such as 14-year-old Cruz Erdmann, an award-winning marine wildlife photographer and 13-year-old Naomi Wadler, a campaigner in the US against gun violence will take part in the event.  

It may be mentioned that the forum’s own Global Risks report published last week warned that
“climate change is striking harder and more rapidly than expected” with global temperatures on track to increase by at least three degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) towards the end of the century.

Photo credit: @NetInthe