A screenshot is circulating widely on social media, displaying a report with a headline that reads, “WEF Declares War on Coffee: ‘No More Than 2 or 3 Cups Each Per Year.’” In support of this claim, a news article is also being shared. This article aims to fact-check the assertion presented in the post.
Claim: WEF suggested a limit of not more than 2 or 3 cups of Coffee each per year.
Fact: No recommendation to limit coffee consumption was made at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland in January 2024. During a session titled “Putting a Price On Nature” , guest panelist Hubert Keller mentioned the average CO₂ emissions per ton of coffee consumed but he did not advocate for limiting coffee consumption. The viral claim is false and sourced from an article published by “The People’s Voice” website, known for spreading “false news”. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
To verify the authenticity of the viral claim, we first checked the article link provided. The article, titled “WEF Declares War on Coffee: ‘No More Than 2 or 3 Cups Each Per Year,'” is sourced from The People’s Voice website. Subsequently, we checked the article published by The People’s Voice. In this news article, it is reported that World Economic Forum Agenda Contributor Hubert Keller, in a recent WEF meeting held in January 2024, stated, “The coffee that we all drink emits between 15 and 20 tons of CO₂ per ton of coffee… Every time we drink coffee, we are putting CO₂ into the atmosphere. Most of the coffee is produced by monoculture, and monoculture is also affected by climate change. The quality of these natural assets is deteriorating rapidly.” The article claims that according to the World Economic Forum, coffee drinkers will have to limit themselves to two or three cups of coffee per year in the future.
In support of this, the report carried a post from X (formerly Twitter), which showed a clip of Keller’s speech from a recent panel discussion. However, the clip did not show him specifying a limited consumption of coffee.
To learn more about this panel discussion, we visited the WEF’s official website and found the extended video of the discussion. At the 24:40 timestamp, Keller was asked about the environmental impact of coffee, to which he responded, “Coffee is really interesting because you have the nature dimension of coffee and then you have the economics of coffee, the value chain side of coffee. On the nature side, basically, the coffee that we all drink emits between 15 to 20 tons of CO₂ per ton of coffee, so we should all know that. This is every time we drink coffee, we are basically putting CO₂ into the atmosphere. The other reason, that most of the coffee plantations are produced from monoculture and it is also affected by climate change. The quality of these nature assets is deteriorating quite rapidly.” He further suggests transforming monoculture coffee assets into a regenerative agroforestry model. Nowhere does he mention consuming only two to three cups of coffee every year, as claimed in the article. We also checked the WEF’s website for any press release regarding the claim but found none.
The People’s Voice has a lengthy history of publishing false stories in the past. This website has been listed as a “fake news website” by several fact-checks.
To sum up, WEF did not suggest a limit of drinking not more than 2 or 3 cups per year.
