Government and Policy

From contact tracing to carbon footprint tracking: WEF’s carrot or stick approach to COVID & climate policy

With digital ID and CBDC, it would be easy to turn carbon footprint measurement into enforcement under a social credit system: perspective

The World Economic Forum’s (WEF) carrot or stick approach to climate policies is virtually the same as it was for COVID.

From COVID contact tracing and vaccine passports to carbon footprint tracking and measuring, the end goal is practically identical — to develop the technological foundation to track and trace every person and object on the planet in order to incentivize, coerce, or otherwise manipulate individual human behavior.

Take the latest WEF Annual Meeting of the New Champions, aka “Summer Davos,” that took place in China last month as the latest example of unelected globalists trying to nudge people towards changing their behavior by tracking the carbon footprints of the products they use.

Speaking during a session called “How to Stay Within Planetary Boundaries — Carrot or Stick?” Ma Jun, the director of the Chinese NGO Institute of Public and Environmental affairs, said that the Chinese people were aware of tangible things like air and water pollution that they could experience with their own senses, but were less aware of climate issues (i.e. their carbon footprints), which were less tangible, but that measuring carbon footprints could be the solution.

“On the climate side [China] is still lagging behind regions like Europe […] which can support very, very tough public policy on the climate side”

Ma Jun, WEF, 2023

In China, people’s awareness on the ecological side and on the pollution control side is much higher than the climate side,” said Jun, adding, “On the climate side, it’s still not quite there. We’re still lagging behind, say, regions like Europe, which can have such a high level of public awareness, which can support very, very tough public policy on the climate side.”

China had one of the toughest, most Orwellian responses to COVID while simultaneously rounding up its Uighur population for internment in “re-education camps,” but this man is saying that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) can’t support tough policies on climate?

At any rate, Jun went on to explain, “In China, the government have created this 30-60 commitment, but people haven’t really linked their daily lives with that, so how do we create those links?

“It’s not like smog; it’s not as palpable as the water pollution and air pollution, so we need to create those [links].”

To further his point, Jun held up a cup of water to explain how its carbon footprint could be tracked and traced from cradle to the gate and on to the grave.

He said that with emerging technology, people could take a picture of a cup and find all kinds of information about its entire life cycle while also measuring its carbon footprint.

“Any package, pallet or container can now be equipped with a sensor, transmitter or radio frequency identification (RFID) tag […] In the near future, similar monitoring systems will also be applied to the movement and tracking of people”

Klaus Schwab, The Fourth Industrial Revolution, 2017

WEF founder Klaus Schwab predicted this in his 2017 book “The Fourth Industrial Revolution.”

There, Schwab wrote, “Any package, pallet or container can now be equipped with a sensor, transmitter or radio frequency identification (RFID) tag that allows a company to track where it is as it moves through the supply chain—how it is performing, how it is being used, and so on.”

In the near future, similar monitoring systems will also be applied to the movement and tracking of people,” he added.

Schwab’s words would turn prophetic during the pandemic.

Source: World Economic Forum

What started with digital contact tracing and surveillance in 2020 quickly morphed into vaccine passports, which paved the technological framework to push forward digital identity schemes by way of a trojan horse in early 2021 — all of which were championed by the WEF and its partners.

Vaccine passports, according to the WEF, “serve as a form of digital identity” while a “digital identity determines what products, services and information we can access – or, conversely, what is closed off to us.”

While Schwab mentioned RFID chips as a technology by which people and goods would be tracked and traced, Jun said that carbon footprint tracking could be done with smartphones, AI, big data, and Internet of Things (IoT) devices.

“We need to create a searchable, user-friendly catalogue and link that with new tools, like take a picture to understand the embedded carbon […] If we link that with AI technology, and then big data, and particularly Internet of Things, there are ways for us to come up with instant measurement and reporting of the carbon footprint”

Ma Jun, WEF, 2023

“We need to create a searchable, user-friendly catalogue and link that with new tools, like take a picture to understand the embedded carbon, so next time it’s not just about in general what kind of carbon footprint of this cup, but very, very specific — this specific brand, even the specific batch of this,” said Jun at this year’s Summer Davos.

“If we link that with AI technology, and then big data, and particularly Internet of Things, there are ways for us to come up with instant measurement and reporting of the carbon footprint.

I hope that through this we can help people to really make different choices,” he added.

But when the carrot fails to work, the stick will come down heavy.

Spare the rod, spoil the child — only this time the child is you and me, and the rod is a social credit system linked to your digital ID and Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) that can be programmed and turned off with a virtual switch.

“Individual carbon footprint tracker, stay tuned! We don’t have it operational yet, but this is something we’re working on”

J Michael Evans (Alibaba), WEF, 2022

Presently, banks and ecommerce platforms like Alibaba are beginning to implement carbon footprint trackers as a means to simply measure carbon footprints, but a future where measurement turns into punishment may not be far off.

Speaking at the WEF’s annual meeting in 2022, Alibaba president J. Michael Evans announced that the Chinese multinational e-commerce platform would soon be launching individual carbon footprint trackers in an attempt to change people’s shopping and travel behaviors.

The individual carbon footprint tracker looks to operate similarly to the Chinese Communist Party’s social credit system by rewarding people who “do the right thing” while punishing those who “do the wrong thing” — carrot versus stick.

“At a billion consumers, we’re developing, through technology, an ability for consumers to measure their own carbon footprint,” Evans told the unelected globalists at Davos 2022 during the “Strategic Outlook: Responsible Consumption” session.

“What does that mean?” he went on to say.

“That’s where they’re traveling, how they are traveling, what are they eating, what are they consuming on the platform.

“So, individual carbon footprint tracker, stay tuned! We don’t have it operational yet, but this is something we’re working on.”

An individual carbon footprint tracker doesn’t have to be part of a social credit system — it can be used by shoppers and travelers simply as a way to know how much they are consuming for their own purposes, but it’s a slippery slope towards being a social crediting tool.

Measuring individual carbon footprint is one thing; however, if governments mandate the tracker as a matter of policy for punishing or rewarding behavior, then it becomes yet another tool for enforcing a system of social credit.

And if programmable CBDCs and digital IDs become widely accepted, it would be very easy to turn carbon footprint measurement into carbon footprint enforcement.

After all, what would be the purpose of setting up a system to track people’s carbon footprints if it wouldn’t be used to tax or otherwise punish those who do “the wrong thing?”

In China, citizens are given a credit score based on their online and offline behavior. It’s a system that rewards “good” behavior like spending time with the elderly while punishing “bad” behavior like protesting the government or spending too much time playing videogames.

When “trust” is broken in one area, restrictions are placed everywhere — meaning citizens who commit even minor infractions can be blacklisted from traveling, going to restaurants, renting a home, or even having insurance. This has happened to over 30 million citizens, according to Chinese State-run media.

The ways in which this type of social credit enforcement can be carried out are truly dystopian under the current technocratic takeover of society known as the great reset, as it’s called in its present manifestation.

Go over your carbon limit, and you may be fined at the least, or you may not be able to travel, buy meat, adjust your thermostat, or worse.

Tim Hinchliffe

The Sociable editor Tim Hinchliffe covers tech and society, with perspectives on public and private policies proposed by governments, unelected globalists, think tanks, big tech companies, defense departments, and intelligence agencies. Previously, Tim was a reporter for the Ghanaian Chronicle in West Africa and an editor at Colombia Reports in South America. These days, he is only responsible for articles he writes and publishes in his own name. tim@sociable.co

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