Heads of state and leading figures from business and academia gather this week in Davos, Switzerland to “shape global, regional and industry agendas,” as part of the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) annual meeting. With this year’s conference entitled "The Great Transformation: Shaping New Models," we talk to WEF Sustainability Adviser and CIGI Senior Visiting Fellow Simon Zadek on what the forum’s unique composition can offer in terms of economic recovery and a move toward green growth.

"Time will tell whether 2012 will be a disaster on the scale that Lagarde predicts, and let's hope not. But, as predictions go, one cannot go far wrong in saying that 2012 is going to be ghastly for, quite literally, hundreds of millions of people," warns CIGI Senior Visiting Fellow Simon Zadek.

CIGI Distinguished Fellow Paul Heinbecker comments on Canada's withdrawal from the Kyoto protocol and says "how do we now tell other people that they have to live by the next [climate change agreement] if we pull out of the first one?"

In a CBC News story, CIGI Distinguished Fellow Paul Heinbecker, who led the Canadian delegation to the 1997 Kyoto talks, describes the Durban agreement on climate change as significant.

"What's needed is a Plan B that gets us beyond having to choose between the unlikely and the insufficient. It has to address the problem at scale, rapidly," CIGI Senior Visiting Fellow Simon Zadek argues in making the case for green, inclusive economies.