So it’s all happening. We’ve queued to shake hands with the World Economic Forum’s Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab and toasted this year’s annual meeting at its traditional "Welcome Cocktail." The four-and-a-half-day frenzy that is Davos 2007 is under way.

Above all, it can’t be too long before one of my anchor colleagues asks me on air "So, Charles, what’s the buzz at Davos?"

I have a big problem with this question. Yes, I always blather out some kind of answer, but the fact is, there isn’t generally any one single issue or viewpoint that dominates the annual meeting here.

A lot of people seem to think Davos is some kind of parliament where everyone meets in one huge room and plots the advancement of capitalism. It isn’t. Everyone goes to the gala soiree on the Saturday night, but beyond that there are literally hundreds of official sessions, some drawing big crowds, others just a few devoted souls.

And that’s not even mentioning the scores of rival attractions organised by big companies for their clients and friends, or the one-on-one meetings where business leaders thrash out big deals in the rarefied Alpine atmosphere. Everyone does different things when they get to Davos, and there are as many subjects of conversations as participants.

Unfortunately, even if there really were one thing that all 2,400 of them talked about, I’d probably never get to hear about it. This time around, CNN’s workspace is down in the concrete bunker below the Davos congress centre. Every Swiss town has one, designed to shelter its population from any nuclear attack and its aftermath, sealed off from the word above by impressively thick doors with chunky steel catches. Not the best place for journalists: if you’re trying to keep your ear to the ground, it’s best not to be several storeys below ground.

That said, there’ve been two recent WEF annual meetings where people have talked a lot about one thing. One was the one held – exceptionally – in New York City a few months after 9/11. I wasn’t there, but I’d think the challenge of terrorism and its relationship with Islam was front, left and center. And the second one was a year later, back in Davos: The United States was poised to go to war in Iraq and Secretary of State Colin Powell came here to explain why – above all, to sceptical Europeans.

And this year? Global warming looked like it had a chance – especially when the CNN team we all arrived in Switzerland to find it unseasonably warm and devoid of snow, except right up the mountains. A snowless Davos would have been just the kind of striking anecdotal evidence that might wake up Big Business.

But just before the participants arrived in their gaz-guzzling limousines and helicopters, along came a big belt of colder weather and clouds full of snow and – guess what? – Davos is now as white as ever it was, so perhaps we can get back to our cocoon and leave the task of rolling back climate change to our grandchildren. Talking about the weather is so unoriginal anyway.

So what am I going to say when somebody pops that awkward question about the talk of the Forum? Maybe this time I’ll just have to tell the truth.