Agenda-Setting Foresight

There are many contested narratives on climate action. In ‘we have the solutions’, the challenge is to create policy signals in order to give markets confidence, redirect finance and scale existing technologies. The story goes that innovation and exponential growth will follow.

Peter Kingsley argues that this is critical, but not sufficient. There is an ‘invention gap’ that must be filled to hedge against the extreme scenarios surrounding runaway global heating, policy failures and complacency about steep cuts in emissions. The gap is systemic and strategic, cutting across all industry sectors and spanning global governance, policy, regulation, economics and corporate stewardship.

Climate disruption as a result of rising temperatures is already at the outer edge of the worst-case scientific projections. Simon Tilford argues that we could be approaching a ‘tipping point’, when governments will be forced to take urgent action. A wartime scenario is perhaps the closest analogy the kind of environment into which we might be heading. Once on a war footing, governments direct rather than set the rules of the game. In this scenario, the implications for firms and investors would be far-reaching.

We do not have 30 years to reach net zero. Committed emissions of carbon dioxide already take us close to 2 degrees. The transition will have to be squeezed into less time and will hence be more disruptive than commonly assumed, argues Simon Tilford. It implies a bigger role for government and less globalisation, especially of capital but also of trade; a retreat into ‘Walled Gardens’.

China could become the world’s largest economy as early as 2027. However, as George Magnus argues, size is not everything. Having the biggest economy might not amount to much more than bragging rights if China gets caught in the ‘middle-income’ trap, which the direction of political travel strongly suggests it will.

What if machines can mimic human creativity and how ideas are formed in the biological networks of the brain, generating novel, patentable inventions? Ideas and inventions traded in open global marketplaces. Production localised to social and environmental benefits, with minimal costs. Peter Kingsley explores how state-of-the-art machine-aided innovation will transform everything from asset ownership, to globalisation and patent law.

Ignore the younger generation’s cultural values and attitudes towards the environment and societal inequality at your peril, argues Thierry Malleret . Disillusioned and anxious, ‘generation activist’, powered by social media, will shape prospects for all political parties, industry sectors and companies. Understanding how their aspirations and imagined futures differ radically from those of the ruling Boomers and Generation Xers may itself trigger abrupt cultural change.

Bitcoin is not about to challenge established currencies and is a poor store of value to boot. However, central banks are right to worry about tech giants such as Amazon or Facebook issuing their own private digital currencies. They are all but certain to preempt this by introducing central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and obstructing the spread of private ones.

Simon Tilford argues that while CBDCs will have various advantages, they will also concentrate unprecedented power in the hands of central banks (and by extension states). While democracies should be able to ensure accountability and privacy, the introduction of a Chinese CBDC will further hinder attempts to limit the power of the Chinese authorities.