Historian Niall Ferguson: “Corona was the best pandemic that could exist” SVP chairman Chiesa sharpened the tone: “Berset must draw a line”

Punctual and relaxed, Niall Ferguson appears at the Belvédère Hotel in Davos, where we have agreed for an interview. All week long he listens to speeches by heads of state, which often sound very gloomy. Ferguson views many things differently from a historical perspective.

War, climate change, migration, lack of energy: the world is experiencing several crises at the same time. Which has the worst consequences?

Niall Ferguson: First, let me be clear: these crises are not uncommon. Nor is their accumulation. In any decade of the 20th century you could have shouted: We are in a polycrisis! This word (several crises at the same time, ed.) has become a fashionable term. It makes no sense because it’s redundant.

What do you mean? There can be no single crisis, crises always appear in the plural?

Yes. The world is a complex place. In my research I always come to the same conclusion. If a breakdown occurs anywhere in our global system, the likelihood of a cascade or avalanche of subsequent crises is high. I remember my first WEF participation in 2009…

… the financial and currency crisis was the dominant topic.

I agree with that. It had far-reaching consequences: massive criticism of globalization, which in turn contributed to the election of Donald Trump and Brexit – and as a further consequence the new Cold War between the US and China. The Arab Spring was also linked to the financial crisis.

The corona pandemic, on the other hand, appears to be an isolated crisis.

The timing may have been coincidental, but pandemics have always existed throughout history, and what’s interesting is that they often coincided with wars. Now we have another war in Europe. He’s terrible. But we have no more or no fewer crises than we did a hundred years ago, in the 1920s. And if I could choose to live then or now, I would never want to go back in the time machine.

Aren’t we living in a terribly dangerous and depressing time?

Not historically at all. Take the corona pandemic. It was 12 times less deadly than the flu of 1918 and 1919, when many young people died. Corona, on the other hand, killed old people. This is very unusual for a pandemic – and much less serious. Corona was the best pandemic that could exist.

But what about the war in Ukraine? It is the first offensive war in Europe since World War II.

Horrible. But by 20th century standards, it is a war with very small armies. The Russians marched in with 120,000 or 130,000 men. Bad enough. But Stalin and Hitler would have laughed at these levies.

Pandemic, war: no major crises for you in historical comparison. But what about inflation?

There is a lot of excitement in the media about the alleged “historically high inflation”. In the US it reached less than 10 percent. It was higher in some parts of Europe, but is now falling rapidly. There were very different times. Therefore: Please do not speak of the crisis year! 2023 could be very boring. I don’t mean the war, of course.

The fact that we have crises is hard to get out of our minds…

…because the story of the crisis is very attractive to journalists, leading intellectuals and, of course, to the WEF in Davos. The world is collapsing! Let’s discuss! Let’s make a radical change immediately!

Why do we get drunk with the many crises, why the euphoria of doom?

We feel important as we go through what are supposedly the worst of times. Each generation has its own version of this perception. The doomsday scenario guarantees attention. Conversely, nobody gets a prize when they say: we live in the best of times!

The most influential and many of the brightest people in the world have gathered in Davos. There must be a reason why most of them are pessimistic?

That doesn’t worry me. Or rather, it calms me down. Because I’ve found that if Davos is very bullish (ie optimistic, ed.), you must be bearish (pessimistic). And vice versa.

But it’s understandable that climate change was such a big topic in Davos, isn’t it?

Top politicians give apocalyptic speeches here about global warming. Then I talk to representatives of the private sector, and they say: we are doing well, better than expected, the European energy crisis is over. In short: the end of the world is near and the markets are cheering. It’s all very contradictory. Do not get me wrong. There is no way to stop the rise in temperature. But Europe and the US will fail.

Can global warming be stopped?

Whatever Europe or even the US does, it doesn’t really matter as long as China, India and the rest of Asia keep burning coal. And they do. Also to generate electricity, which they then use to charge the millions and millions of electric vehicles.

When it comes to climate change, you seem to be the naysayer.

No, I think technological solutions are within reach. Solar energy is becoming enormously more economical. The developments in the field of nuclear energy are enormous. Even nuclear fusion is approaching. And hydrogen has great potential. I also think it is important to state that climate change is not immediately deadly like a pandemic. In terms of excess mortality, it is not nearly as dangerous as it is often claimed.

What’s wrong with climate policy?

I find the alarm signals that global warming must be stopped immediately strange if one does not also dare to call on the Chinese to give up coal. Either you do that, or you wait for the new technologies and try to absorb the consequences of climate change as much as possible. And here’s where you have to face the facts: More migration is coming from the increasingly warmer countries in Africa to Europe – how do we deal with that? Nobody asks that question. It takes center stage here, especially as Africa’s population continues to grow while China shrinks for the first time.

Are you bothered by the contradictions and taboos of climate policy?

I haven’t even listed all the contradictions yet. Germany is now leaning more on coal again. But we just have to say: the world is not going to end because of climate change. She just changes. One change is more migration. This is a process called history.

From climate back to war. If your statement is correct, according to which one crisis leads to new crises, then we should be concerned about upgrading the military budgets that almost all countries are currently adopting.

Good point. Wars are like the buses in London. You wait forever for the bus, nothing happens, and then three buses come in a row. I know that this image is not correct in Switzerland. But unfortunately all too common for wars. If a war breaks out, it is likely that it will not be just this one war – because of the consequences of the first war, such as the energy supply shocks. Probably not this year, but I think more wars are very likely in this decade.

Where do you see war risks?

Apparently the risk lies in Taiwan. China and the US are on a collision course here. I also see a risk in Iran. I have never heard a single speech in Davos that war could break out there. Although the situation is getting worse. There is a radical regime in Iran. It just brutally crushed the protests. Without a new nuclear deal, and there won’t be one, Iran’s road to becoming a nuclear power is relatively short. Iran is already involved in proxy wars against Saudi Arabia. And don’t forget: Israel has a new government under Netanyahu that has a very strict policy towards Iran.

When do you expect war to break out in Taiwan or Iran?

That could happen before the war in Ukraine is over. Then we would have additional wars in the Middle and Far East. We live in a new era of the Cold War. In the original Cold War there were always hot, ie real wars. That will probably be the case again now.

So local wars, but no third world war?

A third world war between China and the US would be too great a catastrophe. That’s why it doesn’t happen. But regional wars are also not insignificant, especially since there is an axis with China, Russia and Iran today.

There were again more participants from China at the WEF and the general mood prevails: China leaves Taiwan alone because a war would only cause economic damage. is that naive

The WEF’s global risk report is an institution and gets a lot of media attention. But he is almost always wrong. In 2020, this report named the biggest risks: climate change, climate change, climate change.

That was in January 2020, when the coronavirus was already raging in China and people met physically in Davos as if nothing had happened.

Pandemics have simply not been mentioned in the Global Risk Report since 2008. I remember WEF 2020, everyone was talking about Greta Thunberg, and I wondered, why the hell are they talking about temperatures when there’s a massive pandemic coming up? I looked at the list of participants and saw that there were at least five people from Wuhan in Davos. I emailed WEF founder Klaus Schwab and asked him if he knew his convention could become a superspreader event. He didn’t answer. The WEF was extremely lucky that the virus narrowly missed Davos and then exploded in other ski areas.

But now China is opening up its country and things can start again.

I agree with that. Let’s make money in China again, we’ll take care of Taiwan later! This attitude is dangerous. Intergovernmental disputes rank only 14th in the global risk reporting table, but unfortunately we are close to an escalation here. Don’t forget: there will be elections in Taiwan next year. If the “wrong” people win from a Chinese point of view, it can happen very quickly.