Letter from Davos: Cold weather and long queues as WEF gathering kicks off

It played havoc with the finely balanced logistics of the annual meeting. The main events take place in Davos itself, but there are meetings, briefing and soirees in the surrounding mountains, and in nearly Klosters, where many WEF attendees stay.

You won’t find many climate change deniers in the World Economic Forum, but if any further evidence were needed that the world’s weather is changing, look no further than the 2017 annual meeting in the Alpine town of Davos.

It is cold. OK, at 1,560 metres in the Swiss mountains in January you might expect some snow and ice, but even hardened Weffers have been stunned by the low temperatures this year. It was minus 18°C on Monday night, and the shock was all the more for the Emirati contingent, who had experienced a temperature change of around 40°C on the six-hour flight from the UAE.

Most of them had dressed for the part. There was lots of very new-looking cold weather gear – boots, hats, puffer jackets – on show.

Hard for the Middle Eastern contingent, but what really made you think the world was entering “day after tomorrow” territory was the reaction of the locals. On Monday evening, even the good citizens of the Graubunden canton were taken unawares by the temperature drop.

It played havoc with the finely balanced logistics of the annual meeting. The main events take place in Davos itself, but there are meetings, briefing and soirées in the surrounding mountains, and in nearly Klosters, where many WEF attendees stay.

It’s only 12 kilometres or so away, and is normally well served by the shuttle service the WEF puts on. But that system was on the brink of collapse as an accident closed the road for nearly three hours.

The Weffers – stuck in a car when they should be snuggling down under a duvet – blamed the Swiss. The Swiss blamed the Germans, who drive in large numbers to the annual meeting, but neglect to put on the appropriate tyres, and who it was said had caused the accident.

In the end, we all blamed the Chinese. The attendance of president Xi Jinping for the first ever Davos visit by a head of state of the People’s Republic meant a big influx of first-time Chinese Weffers, who maybe didn’t quite understand the Davos protocols.

There were even longer delays than usual at security check in at the Congress Hall as Chinese visitors didn’t have the right access documents, or who had to go back through check-in for a second or third time because they didn’t understand the formalities.

But they got there in the end, and president Xi’s speech was heard by a Congress Hall bursting at the seams. Judging by the reaction, it was a big success. It certainly went down well with Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the WEF, who was happy to have some political support in his campaign to preserve the good name of globalisation.

The anti-global backlash led by Donald Trump and Theresa May might be kept at bay for a while.

The populist reaction figured largely in one of the top outside events of the opening day: a briefing on global risk from the team at Citibank. This was held at the Morosani Schweizerhof, a 15-minute slither from the Congress Hall.

Willem Buiter, Citi’s chief economist, was in mischievous mood for the era of “post truth”. “People will believe in anything these days – creationism, flat Earth, the tooth fairy”. His partner-in-risk Tina Fordham had to keep him under control.

But after the risk briefings, the Xi speech and the other worthy events that are the main business of Davos, there are always some opportunities for Weffers to relax and let their hair down. Maybe the best media event of Davos – assuming you haven’t received an invite to the chalet party of Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska – is at the Aberdeen Cafe.

Aberdeen Asset Management, the investment firm that last year opened up on the Abu Dhabi Global Market, has pulled off a coup with its Davos base, just metres away from the Belvedere Hotel, the epicentre of the WEF experience and smack bang in the middle of Promenade.

You cannot miss the Aberdeen event – not least because it is the only party in town with a kilted Scottish piper luring you in. The poor man must have been frozen, but they’re tough people, the Scots.

A nightcap in the Belvedere, then off home on the Klosters shuttle, keeping an eye out for a glimpse of Shakira. No luck.

But this time a trouble-free trip over the pass to Klosters. Maybe the Germans had changed their tyres.

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