Spotlight on elite’s carbon footprint at Davos summit

CLIMATE change will be among the big issues at this week’s meeting of the world’s business and political elite in Davos, Switzerland, and they could start by confronting their own carbon footprint.

Today, hundreds of participants in the World Economic Forum (WEF) will land in private planes as large as Boeing 767s and travel to the Swiss winter resort in helicopters, limousines or rented 4x4s.

While some will take advantage of different programmes to reduce greenhouse gases or use Switz-erland’s train network — one of the world’s best developed — the annual meeting will demonstrate how such global meetings contribute to the problem of greenhouse gases.

Andre Schneider, chief operating officer of the Geneva-based WEF, said the five-day meeting produces about 6,800 tonnes of carbon emissions, equal to the amount released over a year by 1,250 passenger cars or 900 homes.

The 38-year-old forum is trying to shrink its carbon footprint this time by offering free transport from Zurich airport in one of 94 Audi A8s, 12 of them armoured, that run on low-emission biodiesel fuel.

About 150 participants are expected to use the service.

But many of the 2,500 politicians and business leaders attending will make their way by more traditional, and dirtier, means of transportation.

Zurich airport expects about 900 additional landings and take-offs during the event, while Davos is preparing for a daily influx of 20 helicopters.

There are also separate plans for the transport of state guests, who will include US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

The forum’s sessions include Progress on Climate Change, featuring Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning UN body on global warming; Beyond Kyoto: Is Collaboration Possible? which deals with emissions-reducing programmes after 2012; and Combining Solutions to Extreme Poverty and the Climate Crisis, a discussion between U2 singer Bono and Nobel prize- winner Al Gore.