The snow kept French president Jacques Chirac from coming to Davos, but even from far away he managed to heat things up around here. During a videoconference set up from Paris – after his helicopter cancelled the flight due to the bad weather conditions – M. Chirac talked about the famous tax on international financial transactions to fight AIDS.

Jacques Chirac says it is not a tax, but a "contribution". Whatever it should be called, the fact is that it could raise ten billion dollars per year. According to the French president, this levy should not be an obstacle to normal market operation. It would be based on a very low rate, of a maximum of one thousandth, applied to a fraction of international financial transactions. It sounds quite fair, given that those transactions represent some three trillion dollars per day.

Until this point, no reactions from the audience, but then he brings up another proposition. He suggests that all the countries that maintain bank secrecy should establish a levy on flows of foreign capital in and out of their territory. This should be a way to compensate all the damage of world tax evasion to the poorest countries. Despite the freezing temperature outside, this second "approach" probably made a lot of the participants sweat…

The third suggestion from the French president is a levy on the fuel used by air and sea transportation, once they contribute to the greenhouse effect and the pollution of the planet. Another possibility concerning this same sector would be paying an extra dollar for each plane ticket that we buy. That would represent 3 billion dollars per year to finance research into a vaccine for HIV/AIDS and develop prevention campaigns .

All those ideas seem feasible and they have the support of Brazil, Chile, Spain and 110 other nations around the world. The challenge now is to convince the corporations directly affected by those measures to implement them. And no better place than Davos to start this hard talk.

– Joana Calmon