AAP FACTCHECK – A video of the founder of the World Economic Forum (WEF), Klaus Schwab, has been manipulated to make it look as if he spoke of his organisation’s plans to rid LA of all its traffic before the recent deadly fires.
However, the original, unedited 2015 video reveals Professor Schwab was paraphrasing the then-LA mayor’s future vision for the city.
Fires in LA have consumed an area nearly the size of Washington, DC, resulting in at least 25 deaths.
Various Facebook posts feature the clip of the WEF chairman speaking about the future of LA along with captions such as: “Klaus Schwab: Los Angeles, ‘By 2030 it will be private car driver free’. Doesn’t this make you wonder if the California fires were set deliberately … ?”
In the clip, Prof Schwab says: “When we meet for the 20th Governments Summit, you will use the app like Uber … a self-driven car will come to your hotel or wherever you are, and will bring you to the airport.
“Los Angeles is one of the cities with the heaviest traffic, who [sic] told me in 2030, Los Angeles will be ‘private car driven free’ and this will allow [sic] to transform highways into parks and other public spheres.”
The clip is a manipulated version of a video of his speech at the third World Governments Summit in Dubai in 2015.
His full, unedited speech, which is available on YouTube, reveals he was quoting then-LA mayor Eric Garcetti, which has been cut from the clip shared on social media.
Prof Schwab talked about the “Uberisation” of the economy, in which he predicted there would be a shift towards the “on-demand” economy.
He made a playful bet with attendees about how they’ll travel to the World Governments Summit in 2033.
“When we meet for the 20th Governance Summit, you will use an app like Uber, but not anymore to call some driver but an automatically-guided car, a self-driven car will come to your hotel or wherever you are and will bring you to the airport,” Prof Schwab said (13 minutes 20 seconds).
The WEF founder then recounted his recent conversation with Mr Garcetti, who laid out a vision for the future of transport in the city.
“Actually, I had a discussion some months ago with the mayor of Los Angeles (and you know Los Angeles is one of the cities with the heaviest traffic) who told me in 2030, Los Angeles will be ‘private car driven free’ and this will allow to [sic] transform highways into parks and other public spheres,” Prof Schwab said (13:46).
The professor and the WEF have become major targets for conspiracy theories and misinformation in recent years.
AAP FactCheck has debunked numerous claims about “globalist” conspiracies connected to him and the forum in the past.
The Verdict
False – The claim is inaccurate.
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