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At the United Nations COP27 conference in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, John Kerry, the US presidential special envoy for climate, spoke about the need for private companies and governments to work together to addressing climate change. An Instagram post has interpreted his comments as an attack on capitalism and the middle class.
One person posted a video of himself talking about Kerry’s comments on Nov. 7, using a photo from a Gateway Pundit article as the background. The headline of the article is, “John Kerry Spills the Beans at UN’s COP27 Meeting: They Want to Replace Capitalism with a New Economic System.”
“They want to eliminate the middle class, they want to put you under a central bank digital currency system, or you see a carbon tax, you see a social credit account , they will take away your rights,” the man said in the video.
Most of this guy’s comments came from a post from Gateway Pundit, a conservative website known for spreading misinformation.
The “they” mentioned by the person with the Gateway Pundit column appears to be the First Movers Coalition, an alliance between the US and the World Economic Forum. The merger began in 2021 with more than 50 private companies pledging to invest in green technologies and renewable energy sources in the transport and industrial sectors.
A spokesperson for the World Economic Forum told PolitiFact that there is no truth to the claims from the Instagram video and the Gateway Pundit. Those claims are based on controversial theories surrounding the World Economic Forum’s “The Great Reset” policy proposals.
The Instagram post was marked as part of Instagram’s efforts to combat false and misleading information on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)
Kerry’s speech at COP27
During the COP27 panel, Kerry spoke about the First Movers Coalition, which went from 25 member companies in 2021 to 65 members in 2022. He explained the need for these companies to lead efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and keep global temperatures from rising above 1.5 degrees. Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-Industrial Revolution levels.
Companies that promise to be more environmentally friendly will have to demand more of the new technology, Kerry said.
“We have a big challenge in front of us to bring in new technologies and use the power of private sector entrepreneurs to bring them to the table because, if there is no government that has enough money to accelerate, to support the process,” Kerry said. “We all need this work.”
The Instagram video doesn’t say what drives companies to invest in new technology that ends up capitalizing or destroying the middle class.
However, the Gateway Pundit says that creating artificial demand for environmental goods, such as electric cars and animal-free diets, can have negative consequences.
In one example, the publication said that promoting a variety of foods would reduce the need for meat and reduce the number of animals in the United States in favor of “squirrels and other insects” as protein.
However, the Department of Environmental Protection said extreme weather events such as floods, droughts and heat waves can reduce crops and cause livestock deaths.
The World Economic Forum’s “Big Set”.
Kerry didn’t talk about a central bank digital currency, carbon tax or social credit during his speech at COP27.
Yann Zopf, a spokesman for the World Economic Forum, told PolitiFact that the organization believes that digital currencies “have an opportunity to create a global financial system” in the world after epidemic, but he can only say it, not order it to be used.
Zopf said the World Economic Forum is not a legal body; its mission is to enable cooperation between private companies and governments.
“The claims (in the Instagram video) are false and misleading,” he said.
The World Economic Forum said the Great Reset’s proposals were designed to shape “international relations, the direction of national economies, the priorities of societies, the nature of business models and governance in the people of the world” in the world after COVID-19.
The project recommends that governments better coordinate tax and fiscal policies, reform trade agreements and use technology to address health and social challenges.
Because of its overarching claims to “modernize capital,” the Great Reset has been the subject of much skepticism.
Our decision
An Instagram video said Kerry talked about the need to “dismantle the middle class … so you can get under a central bank digital currency system.”
Kerry did not call for that at the COP27 climate conference. He talked about private companies investing in green technologies to fight climate change. He did not argue for ending the middle class or implementing a central bank digital currency system.
We conclude this claim to be false.
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