The idea of free-market has gone too far in some parts of the world. While there are benefits to having a market separate from national interests that is fueled by creativity and competition, removing all forms of government oversight and regulation is extreme. Yet, this is exactly what has happened in many democracies around the planet: governments have created a policy environment that fuels profit in the name of development but does little to ensure that corporations do no harm in the process. Such unrestrained capitalism has led to massive socioenvironmental impacts around the world.

Corporations have routinely engaged in destructive resource extraction, goods production, and waste disposal techniques that have fueled climate change and ozone depletion, land and water pollution, biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse. Today, environmental degradation, in the hands of these companies, is off the charts. So much so that environmental issues were identified as among the top five risk concerns over the next decade for the first time by the World Economic Forum’s 2020 Global Risks Report. Additionally, in its annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland last week, the Forum called on its government and business participants to set a 2050 net-zero emission target.

Now, as a powerful international organisation that is committed to zero-emissions and that aims to promote public-private cooperation to solve global issues, the World Economic Forum may seem like an ideal place to discuss how governments and corporations can work together to decrease the socioenvironmental impact of development. But this has rarely been the case. As the name suggests, the activities within the Forum’s halls have usually prioritised the economy over the people and the planet. Additionally, the organisation is far from inclusive: Attendance is either invitation only or costs a membership fee of a couple of hundred thousand dollars, and a majority of the members in attendance are white, male and affiliated to big businesses.

So, given their demonstrated priorities and their exclusivity, can we depend on the Forum to help us find solutions for the climate challenges we are facing today?

A Carbon Majors report from 2017 finds that 100 companies alone—most of whom were present in Davos this year—are responsible for 71 percent of the global emissions since 1998. It comes as no surprise that the world’s biggest oil companies such as ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, and Chevron make this cut. However, it is not just this corporate contribution to climate change that is troubling, it is also the companies’ history of hiding evidence, greenwashing their image and covertly subverting climate action.

In 2015, news broke that despite ExxonMobil scientists and executives knowing about climate change as early as the 1980s, they engaged in an extensive multi-decade campaign to spread doubt about the issue. Exxon was accused of deliberately misleading the public to serve its own interests. A 2017 research by two Harvard professors, examining the company’s internal research documents and public statements, confirmed this accusation. The research found that the company’s internal studies yielded the same conclusions that outside scientists did on global warming. Despite this, however, 80 percent of Exxon’s communication to the public, expressed doubt about climate change.

Their deception did not stop here though. Exxon did not only deny climate change themselves but paid other organisations to do so as well: Up until the 2000s, Exxon funded thinktanks to push climate denial. While this eventually stopped due to rising public criticism, the company still supports groups that oppose climate action and often lobbies politicians to do the same. A 2019 report by Influence Map found that oil companies like Exxon, BP and Chevron spend nearly $200 million annually—lobbying to delay or block climate change mitigation policies.

Despite having done little to address climate change, Exxon and other polluting megacorporations like it paint themselves as climate champions to the public. Companies achieve this greenwashing through public announcements and advertisements that deliberately oversell their climate contributions or by sponsoring the United Nations’ annual global climate talks.

Greenwashing not only keeps polluting corporations from losing their environmentally-conscious customer base but also allows them access to the halls of global climate negotiations, where they use their presence to water-down climate policies and actions. For example, like every other year, present among the participants of COP25 last month were hundreds of fossil fuel lobbyists. This conflicting presence of the fossil industry has subverted climate action for decades. After all, even the most ambitious global climate change agreement, the Paris Agreement, makes no mention of coal, oil, natural gas or fossil fuels.

These examples of climate inaction and deliberate policy subversion more or less characterise the behaviour of most big businesses that are members of the World Economic Forum. Using their deep pockets, at the most extreme, they lobby for favourable climate policies and, in the least, they engage in greenwashing. They have given us no reason to believe this will change in the future. So, can we depend on the World Economic Forum—essentially run by the profits of these corporations—to help change the climate status quo? Definitely not.

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