Election Day Special

As addressed in previous Reuters fact checks, these claims likely originated from a WEF social media video from 2016 that stated eight predictions about the world in 2030, including: “You’ll own nothing. And you’ll be happy. What you want you’ll rent, and it’ll be delivered by drone.”

Danish politician Ida Auken (NOT KLAUS SCHWAB), who wrote the prediction in question (here), said it was not a “utopia or dream of the future” but “a scenario showing where we could be heading - for better and for worse.”


In a written update, she clarified that the piece aimed to “start a discussion about some of the pros and cons of the current technological development. When we are dealing with the future, it is not enough to work with reports. We should start discussions in many new ways. This is the intention with this piece.”

In the past, false claims about the WEF have been conflated with conspiracy theories about the United Nation’s ‘Agenda 30’ framework, which is a set of Sustainable Development Goals devised in 2015 at the United Nations General Assembly (sdgs.un.org/2030agenda). They are freely available on government websites and outline objectives like ending poverty, which includes the goal making property ownership available to all.

“By 2030, ensure that all men and women, in particular the poor and the vulnerable, have equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to basic services, ownership and control over land and other forms of property, inheritance, natural resources, appropriate new technology and financial services, including microfinance.”

VERDICT
False. The World Economic Forum does not have a stated goal to have people ‘own nothing and be happy’ by 2030. Its Agenda 2030 framework outlines an aim to ensure all people have access to ownership and control over land and other forms of property.