Article misrepresents comments from WEF founder's daughter on Covid pandemic

"Klaus Schwab's Daughter Threatens Humanity with 'Permanent Climate Lockdowns Whether You Like It or Not," says the headline of an August 3, 2023 article from The People's Voice, a website that AFP has previously fact-checked for spreading misinformation.

The claim also spread on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, which is being rebranded as "X" -- including in Finnish and German.

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Screenshot of an Instagram post taken August 11, 2023

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Screenshot of a People's Voice article taken August 11, 2023

 

However, WEF spokesman Trevor Chueu told AFP that Nicole Schwab, the director of 1t.org and nature-based solutions at the organization, made no such threat.

"We can confirm that this is fake news," Chueu said in an August 10 email.

In the clip referenced in the People's Voice article and an accompanying Rumble video, Schwab does not discuss climate lockdowns. Instead, she talks about her outlook on how policies adopted during the pandemic could be repurposed to create a more sustainable economy.

"I see it as a tremendous opportunity to have this great reset and to use this huge flow of money -- to use the increased levers that policymakers have today in a way that was not possible before -- to create a change that is not incremental, but that we can look back and we can say this is the moment where we really started to position nature at the core of the economy," Schwab says in the video.

The video was originally posted in July 2021 by InTent (archived here). In its description for the clip, which also appears on YouTube (archived here), the sustainability organization says the segment was filmed in Yvorne, Switzerland in June 2020.

AFP found no trace of advocacy for "climate lockdowns" on the WEF website.

Unfounded 'Great Reset' theories

The article and social media posts build off conspiracy theories that the WEF, an international non-governmental lobbying organization, controls governments, food supplies and health systems.

In the video, Schwab mentions the "Great Reset," a concept spearheaded by the WEF and Britain's King Charles to remodel the global economy around principles of economic fairness and environmental sustainability following the Covid-19 pandemic.

The idea has been the target of unfounded claims about population control via manufactured epidemics and climate lockdowns.

The People's Voice article also mentions 15-minute cities, an urban planning concept aimed at designing neighborhoods that provide all residents' needs within a 15-minute walk or bike ride (archived here). Experts have previously told AFP the philosophy's goal is not to restrict people's movement.

More of AFP's reporting on misinformation about the WEF is available here.