DAVOS, Switzerland

In the runup to this year’s World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, set to start Monday, several groups staged anti-Davos demonstrations, protesting global firms for exacerbating human-made damage to the environment.

Activists from the Strike-WEF Collective and the Young Socialists of Switzerland gathered in Davos Postplatz on Sunday, criticizing the Davos elite, accusing them of elitism and hypocrisy for – for instance – flying in private jets to a meeting to discuss climate change.

Gianna Catrina, 21, one of the protest leaders, told Anadolu that the ecological crisis right now is fueled by the current economic system, which she said “is the cause of the environmental problems and also a lot of social problems.”

“That’s why we are here to protest for the change in global economy, which should change its shift from profit to the one (where the) economy cares about nature,” she explained.

“And it’s really a global movement, that includes environmentalist, left-wing people, feminist people. I think the change is happening right now when people start to rethink the economy, the capitalist economy,” she said.

She also called for the world leaders to shift their focus away from profit because without “preserving nature … the economy is not possible in the future.”

The way WEF is structured is problematic

Claudıo Bernard, another demonstrator from the Strike-WEF Collective, said they demand abolition of the WEF because…