Did the World Economic Forum and the "Davos elite," headed by Klaus Schwab, decide to exterminate seven billion people to curb consumption, and thus save the planet? No, that's not true: The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an annual international forum of business and political leaders who meet to discuss and find solutions to the world's problems. WEF has no independent decision-making power, and there is no evidence to suggest that such a plan exists.
The claim originated in a video (archived here) on TikTok by user @iondragoshoreaba2023 on December 4, 2023, with the caption (translated from Romanian to English by Lead Stories staff):
They no longer want useless consumers, 7 billion will die.
The video said (as translated):
The Davos elites have decided to exterminate 7 billion people, because we need to save the planet. The rich are the ones destroying the planet with their private jets, cars, and yachts, but instead, they will kill the innocent ones, who don't make a difference.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Thu Dec 7 07:21:04 2023 UTC)
The WEF is an annual international forum where business, political and cultural leaders, as well as prominent figures of society, meet to discuss global challenges and propose strategies to solve them. The WEF has no independent decision-making power but seeks to influence people to make decisions that benefit the global community.
The top priorities at the WEF in the last few years included combating climate change, food security and the energy transition. There is no official record of WEF founder Klaus Schwab, other members of the "world elite" or other political leaders saying that the solution to saving the planet is the extermination of seven billion people. A Google search conducted by Lead Stories on December 7, 2023, (archived here), with the following keywords: "schwab OR political leader AND exterminate 7 billion to save planet" did not yield any report or evidence to corroborate such a claim.
The main lines of action, as outlined under the United Nations' Conference of the Parties (COP) initiative, as well as through other similar climate-focused initiatives and organizations, center around lowering global emissions to reach net-zero targets by 2030, speeding the energy transition, increasing climate finance, involving business in reducing carbon emissions and addressing the climate health crisis and its impact on developing countries. The last was a top priority at this year's COP28 meeting. There is no official document or line of action arguing for human extermination as a reasonable solution for saving the planet, as a way of curbing consumption.
Depopulation is a known conspiracy theory that has been often associated with the "global elite," the WEF and its founder and chairman, Klaus Schwab. Lead Stories has debunked several claims related to that.
Other Lead Stories fact checks on claims involving the World Economic Forum can be found here. In particular, another claim referring to Schwab allegedly discussing the elimination of 4 billion "useless eaters," was fact checked by Lead Stories here.
