Davos 2026: the last-chance saloon to save the old world order?
“A Spirit of Dialogue”: the theme for this year’s World Economic Forum, the gathering of the global elite in the sparkling Alpine air of Davos, seems a heroic stretch, when star guest Donald Trump has spent the past year smashing up the world order,The president will touch down alongside the snowcapped Swiss mountains with the largest US delegation ever seen at the WEF, including the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, the treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, the commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, and the special envoy Steve Witkoff,Last year, just days after his second inauguration, Trump was beamed in to Davos on screen to deliver a punchy speech, in which he threatened across-the-board tariffs, urged Nato countries to raise defence spending, and called on the Federal Reserve to slash interest rates “immediately” – setting the tone, as it turned out, for a chaotic 12 months,A year on, what was left of the fraying rules-based global order, already jeopardised by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the rising power of the autocratic regime in Beijing, is rapidly unravelling, and the “spirit of dialogue” has been distinctly hard to find,This year’s meeting is taking place at a time of extraordinary geopolitical tumult.
War continues to rage in Ukraine, whose president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is making the trip to Davos as he continues to rally support,Just days before heading to the WEF, Trump suggested that Ukraine was more reluctant to see peace than Russia,When WEF asked more than 1,300 politicians, business leaders and academics about their fears for the future, they identified “geoeconomic confrontation” as the most pressing risk for the next two years – the clash for economic dominance between the big powers,The second most popular choice was outright war between nations,In recent weeks alone, Trump has sent troops to seize the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro; stepped up his rhetoric on annexing Greenland; and threatened to attack Iran if protests continue to be repressed.
Yet with the kind of multilateralism WEF was founded to foster apparently on its last legs, there is a fightback under way, too.It was clearly evident in the decision of usually reticent central bankers this week to wade into the row over the independence of the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, by publishing an unprecedented joint letter.And while Trump is coming mob-handed, other leaders will be flying in to Davos intent on making the argument for free trade, transatlantic cooperation and the staunch defence of Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression.They include The Nato chief, Mark Rutte, the French president, and the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen.Another attender will be António Guterres, the UN secretary general.
On Thursday, as he reviewed his priorities for 2026, he said that “when leaders run roughshod over international law – when they pick and choose which rules to follow – they are not only undermining global order, they are setting a perilous precedent.”Russia may have begun that process with the invasion of Ukraine, while the conflict in the Middle East has raised acute concerns about war crimes, particularly from the near total bombing of Gaza by Israel, but it is US behaviour that has brought the postwar international order closer to the brink.“The erosion of international law is not happening in the shadows,” Guterres added.Global military spending now amounts to $2.7tn (£2tn), an annual increase of 9.
4%, the steepest rise since the end of the cold war.Countries around the world racing to increase war spending either in response to perceived threats from Russia, China and the US and the events of 2026 alone are likely to persuade leaders from democracies and dictatorships of the need to spend more.But for all the projection of US military power into countries such as Venezuela, senior diplomats also quietly believe it could prompt a growing resistance among populations around the world.Though American power is significant, China and other developing countries continue to grow as a share of the global economy, meaning the long-term balance is slowly tipping away from the US.So far Trump’s efforts to force a pro-Russian peace on Ukraine have failed amid a concerted European pushback.
The US president pulled back from an attack on Iran, partly after intense lobbying from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries concerned about the risk of a regional war, but also because it was not obvious there was a credible external military response to the Iranian regime’s crackdown.Multinational cooperation continues, but it gains fewer headlines.This year the UN will launch an independent scientific panel on artificial intelligence: a 40-strong expert group to try to temper the commercially driven AI models dominated by the US companies that will be showing their wares along Davos main street, the Promenade.More than 50 years after its founding, the pulling power of the WEF for the rich and powerful is undimmed: more than 60 heads of state or government are expected, as well as 55 economy and finance ministers, and more than 800 chief executives or chairs of big corporations.Companies pay 27,000 Swiss francs (£25,000) for each member of their delegation, in addition to a chunky annual membership fee.
In a gesture at inclusivity, WEF uses some of that income to subsidise participants from civil society groups.Stomping between conference venues in ski boots and fur hats, participants join public discussions and debates; hold thousands of private meetings across the sprawling conference site; and swap gossip at champagne-fuelled late-night parties in the resort’s hotels and après-ski spots, many taken over by private sector sponsors for the duration.Corporate movers and shakers due to attend include Nvidia’s president, Jensen Huang, the Microsoft chief executive, Satya Nadella, and the Anthropic founder and chief executive, Dario Amodei – all key figures in the AI boom that has buoyed Wall Street and further enriched a cohort of US billionaires over the past 12 months.Analysis commissioned by environmental charity Greenpeace before the meeting found the number of private jet flights associated with Davos more than tripled between the 2023 and 2025 meetings, highlighting the climate impact of the annual shindig.The WEF president, Børge Brende, a former Norwegian minister, hopefully told Time magazine in a pre-Davos interview “we know that President Trump [and his] secretaries are very much into deal making, and to make deals, you have to have a dialogue”.
But he conceded the meeting was taking place against “the most complicated geopolitical backdrop since the WEF was founded”,Winnie Byanyima, the executive director of UNAids, who co-chaired Davos in 2015, using the platform to press for action on global inequality, says Trump’s presence is hard to reconcile with WEF’s stated purpose,“It’s such a contradiction, in my view,A world where the WEF would contribute is a rules-based world, where there’s predictability, where business works with governments – business to achieve their profits but governments to meet the needs of their people,But him, he represents might is right.
”This year’s gathering is the first of a new era, without the looming presence of “Mr Davos” – the WEF’s founder, Klaus Schwab.The 87-year-old, who hosted the first Davos summit in 1971, stepped down from the organisation’s board last year, after whistleblowers raised allegations, including unauthorised spending, against Schwab and his wife, Hilde.He publicly contested the claims, insisting “throughout this journey, Hilde and I never used the forum for personal enrichment”.After an investigation by the Swiss law firm Homburger, WEF’s board of trustees cleared him of “material wrongdoing” last August.“Minor irregularities, stemming from blurred lines between personal contributions and forum operations, reflect deep commitment rather than intent of misconduct,” a WEF statement said at the time.
Schwab is not expected to be present at this year’s gathering; but in a hint that he may be missing the limelight, is publishing a new book – one of a series – to coincide with Davos,Titled Restoring Truth and Trust, the 110-page volume is peppered with phrases such as “having devoted my life to public service” and “for someone who spent years in diplomatic circles”,Danny Sriskandarajah, the director of the New Economics Foundation thinktank in the UK, was once one of WEF’s Young Global Leaders, who bring the perspectives of civil society and business into Davos discussions,He is not attending this year, and argues that the WEF no longer serves the purpose for which Schwab founded it more than half a century ago,“My view is, it was ahead of its time, but now it’s a relic of the past,” he says.
“He [Schwab] was ahead of the game, in that he said, ‘we’re only going to tackle the world’s problems if we do a multi-stakeholder approach and we think about the global dimensions of these problems’”,But with any semblance of a “rules-based global order” now gone, he argues, “it’s problematic for lots of reasons, mostly because it is just unaccountable and there’s no real legitimacy to it,”Jamie Drummond, another Young Global Leader, who co-founded the One charity with the U2 lead singer Bono, says that in the late 1990s and early 2000s, before the global financial crisis, discussions in Davos helped to shape the diplomatic year ahead,In 2000, it was the venue for the launch of Gavi, the public-private alliance that has since vaccinated more than 1 billion children,“I turned up with Bono a few times,” he says.
“It was useful to get the vaccines initiative going; it was useful to advance debt cancellation in the millennium and the years after that, and I think its peak was when we helped launch Make Poverty History there in 2005,”He argues that such optimism has long evaporated – but he will still be there this year, not as a formal delegate, but in the hope of influencing some of the world’s most powerful people,“This is not Davos’s heyday, it is on the decline – but it’s not dead yet,” he says,
‘The dollar is losing credibility’: why central banks are scrambling for gold
Fifteen minutes after takeoff, the call came for Serbia’s central bank governor: millions of dollars’ worth of gold bars, destined for a high-security Belgrade vault, had been left on the runway of a Swiss airport.In air freight – despite the extraordinary value of bullion – fresh flowers, food and other perishables still take priority. “We learned this the hard way,” Jorgovanka Tabaković told a conference late last year.Serbia’s is among a growing number of central banks to hastily amass vast stockpiles of gold, upending decades of conventional economic logic and fuelling an increase in the gold price amid mounting geopolitical tensions. As Washington challenges the US Federal Reserve’s independence, sending jitters through financial markets, the price soared to a record $4,643 (£3,463) an ounce this week, and analysts have tipped it to break $5,000 this year
Bank of England governor hits out at populism as Trump interferes in US Fed
The governor of the Bank of England has urged the world’s leading global institutions to fight back against the rise of populism, warning that it represents one of the biggest threats to improvements in living standards.In a thinly veiled response to Donald Trump’s attempts to interfere with the independence of the US Federal Reserve, Andrew Bailey said that he and the heads of other institutions had a duty to “challenge back” populist narratives.“Part of the purpose of international agencies is that from time to time they have to tell us what we don’t want to hear, let alone act upon,” he said. “Of course, they have to be accountable for the accuracy and quality of the assessment. But, accepting that, we have to call out messenger shooting
Bank of England governor calls for fightback against populism; South East Water restores service to most Kent and Sussex homes – as it happened
Time to wrap up…The governor of the Bank of England has urged the world’s leading global institutions to fight back against the rise of populism, warning it represents one of the biggest threats to improvements in living standards.In a thinly veiled response to Donald Trump’s attempts to interfere with the independence of the US Federal Reserve, Andrew Bailey said that he and the heads of other institutions had a duty to “challenge back” populist narratives.“Part of the purpose of international agencies is that from time to time they have to tell us what we don’t want to hear, let alone act upon,” he said. “Of course, they have to be accountable for the accuracy and quality of the assessment. But, accepting that, we have to call out messenger shooting
Top two bosses at City & Guilds placed on leave after bonus scandal
The two most senior executives at City & Guilds have been put on leave shortly after a scandal over millions of pounds of bonuses triggered a Charity Commission investigation into the vocational training body.The chief executive, Kirstie Donnelly, and the chief financial officer, Abid Ismail, will be “absent from work for a short period”, as its new owner, PeopleCert, commissioned an internal investigation into events before and after its acquisition of City & Guilds’ training and qualifications business.Last week, the charity watchdog launched a statutory inquiry into last year’s sale of the qualification awards business to PeopleCert, an international certification company. The investigation will examine a range of problems, including “concerns raised in public reporting relating to the sale and bonuses awarded to its executives”.The inquiry was announced after the Guardian revealed last month that City & Guilds executives received million-pound bonuses after the charity privatised its business arm
BP accused of ‘insidious’ influence on UK education through Science Museum links
Campaigners have accused BP of having an insidious influence over the teaching of science, technology, engineering and maths (Stem) in the UK through its relationship with the Science Museum.Documents obtained under freedom of information legislation show how the company funded a research project that led to the creation of the Science Museum Group academy – its teacher and educator training programme – which BP sponsors and which has run more than 500 courses, for more than 5,000 teachers.Campaigners say the documents reveal the extent of control the company had over the research project, called Enterprising Science. The contract setting out the collaboration states that major decisions would not be “validly passed … unless the representative of BP votes in its favour”.Chris Garrard of the campaign group Culture Unstained said: “BP’s toxic influence over young people’s learning is calculated and insidious
South East Water boss lasting weeks in post would be a surprise | Nils Pratley
Can David Hinton, the chief executive of South East Water, stay in his job long enough to bag a £400,000 bonus for turning up to work? With four and a half years to go, one can’t say his chances of landing the retention payment – or “service award” – are good. In fact, it will be surprising if he’s still infuriating the residents of Tunbridge Wells four and a half weeks from now.In the latest episode of this long-running double saga of outages that has left thousands of households in Kent and Sussex without running water for days, Ofwat has opened a first-of-its-kind investigation into whether South East complied with its obligation to provide “high standards of customer service and support”. That comes a day after Emma Reynolds, the environment secretary, called for the regulator to review the company’s operating licence.Meanwhile, even the company’s shareholders, who normally shun the spotlight on these occasions, are spluttering into their bottled water
New York Giants hire ‘honored’ Harbaugh as coach on five-year deal
Toulouse run 11 tries through ragged Sale as Thomas Ramos finds kicking perfection
Emma Raducanu says late-night opener ‘makes no sense’ in swipe at Australia Open
Alcaraz chases history at Australian Open despite split while women’s draw is open
How hard can it be to run 13 miles? With help from the pub, park and peas I am finding out | Barry Glendenning
Kyren Wilson wards off Robertson fightback to reach Masters semis in decider