US President Donald Trump will renew his running battle with young climate campaigner Greta Thunberg when they join the A-list movers and shakers attending the 50th anniversary of the Davos conclave next week.
From climate change to tensions in the Middle East, via trade conflicts and fears of pandemics, the more than 3,000 delegates at the World Economic Forum will thrash out challenges as imposing as the surrounding Swiss Alps.
The WEF has come a long way since its inaugural edition in 1971 and if the main business of Davos remains deal-making among corporate titans, climate change has come to dominate the catalogue of long-term planetary risks identified in a pre-meeting report compiled by the forum.
After trolling each other on Twitter, Trump and the 17-year-old Thunberg will bring rival messages to the well-heeled crowd. The Swede's impassioned speech, and famously hard stare at the US leader, at the UN General Assembly in September symbolised anger over climate inaction.
Climate denier Trump, escaping his Senate impeachment trial back home, said his keynote address on Tuesday would tout "the most incredible" economy ever seen.
"I expect him to send a message to the American people and not to the international community," Carlos Pascual, a former US diplomat and now a vice president at IHS Markit, told AFP.
"The purpose of that message is to reinforce with the elector in the United States that his number one concern in international policy is 'America first'."
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