Apparently trust and leadership were the buzzwords at Davos this year. A pity they were only talked about.

The much-quote figure of 1700 private flights bringing the world’s plutocrats into Davos for the World Economic Forum, where climate change was a headline topic, may be too good to be true. About half that number appears to be more likely. But it does highlight the fact that the annual Davos bonding session is, let’s say, something of a contradiction.

The clue’s in the name: it’s an economic forum. Growth may well be the key to reducing inequality, as many were saying last week, but it’s also handy for those more focused on improving their own quality of life. The place is summed up this year by the reported sighting of a monk checking his smart phone. And who knows if anyone saw the contradiction in Google’s choice of party entertainment, the singer Aloe Blacc (most famous song: I Need a Dollar)?

You couldn’t make it up. And you didn’t really need to. Given the fact that, after years of being pushed down the Davos agenda, climate change was back – and and launching the event with Al Gore/Pharrell Williams double act – what was the WEF (mission: Committed to Improving the State of the World) doing 5000ft up a mountain and 150km from the nearest airport and sizeable transport hub.

Even if the number of private jet movements was half that speculated, that’s rather inefficient in pilot-to-passenger ratios. And private jets burn more fuel in an hour than a car does in a year. That’s an inconvenient truth.

We know that these people need to move around quickly. We understand that having so many important people gathered together in a single place means we can interrogate their influence. We appreciate that the event focuses them and the outside world on the big issues. But.

Davos could look to an event like Editorial Intelligence’s Names Not Numbers, where some of today’s smartest and most influential people first got together (and still do) in the very real environment of a genteel British Victorian seaside town. It’s not parochial – it attracts an international audience, thinkers rather than figureheads, and the event has now spread to New York and Mumbai.

WEF’s Swiss venue and date early in the year make for an interesting comparison with the Geneva motor show (this year 2-15 Mar). It’s Europe’s major annual auto industry event, so leaders from all over the world fly in. But unlike Davos it’s held at sea level (or at least lake level), and is a 10-minute walk from a major airport and a five-minute train ride to the city centre.

Road transport contributes around 15% of the world’s CO2 emissions. But it’s one of mankind’s most important tools. Motor vehicles changed our lives. They mobilised us. They enable business. They transform the lives of people in rural communities. They offer humanitarian assistance. They help fight wars. We need them and they’re being reinvented for the modern world.

And Geneva highlights a car industry which achieves more than the lofty talking shop of Davos ever will. The carmakers have achieved minor miracles. In Europe the average CO2 emissions for all new cars will fall to 130g/km this year. The target for 2021 is 95g/km, which will be down 40% from as recently as 2007 – the year before the financial meltdown caused by the world’s political and business leaders, the same people who were at Davos 2015.

In the UK the emissions are down around 45% since 2000, because a buoyant market means that people are buying newer cars with cleaner tech. And all this is before mass adoption of ultra-low-emissions vehicles has even begun.

This year will see Al Gore’s Live Earth concerts, ahead of the UN-hosted intergovernmental climate conference in Paris – tried-and-tested formats for achieving little. Meantime 2015 will also see the first production hydrogen fuel-cell cars and the roll-out of zero-emissions autonomous vehicles. The auto industry is full of brilliant people who achieve results – fast.

What’s the betting that the next 12 months will also see another Davos World Economic Forum in which the same people will hear the same things said before listening to a pop star they haven’t heard of and climbing back into their Citations and Falcons with a diary note of the 2017 event?