Net Zero is clearly the key issue of our time. With COP26 about to start, 3 key elements need to come together to ensure success. Political leaders have to agree to meet the Net Zero targets, and to provide $100bn/year to help poorer nations fund the changes needed. But nothing will happen on the ground […]
Chemicals and the Economy
The Fed’s stock market bubble is at risk as China bursts its real estate bubble
The US stock market bubble just keeps rising. And every investor “knows” that the US Federal Reserve will never let it burst. But the Fed can’t control the fallout from the bursting of China’s ‘subprime on steroids’ real estate bubble. Could this also mean the end of the Fed’s bubble? There is no doubt that […]
EU patience starts to run out as UK threatens to break the N Ireland Protocol
Unsurprisingly, it turns out that Brexit still isn’t “oven-ready”, despite the UK government’s promises back in 2019. Instead, as many of us pointed out all along (and The Times cartoon confirms), it is set to lead to years of dislocation and disruption for the UK economy. Of course, the pandemic made things worse. But it […]
A look back from 2030 at the success of COP26
Looking back over the 2020s, it is easy to see how forward-looking companies emerged as Winners in the race to decarbonise, as I discuss in my new analysis for ICIS Chemical Business. “If we are going to hold the rise in the Earth’s temperature to 1.5 degrees, we must reduce emissions significantly between 2020 and […]
An end to the China bubble would risk a Minsky moment
My letter in today’s Financial Times warning of the risk to Western financial markets from the bursting of China’s property bubble. Many “valuations are, after all, at more extreme levels than in 2008, due to the belief that China’s demand growth is unstoppable.”
Xi aims to “bring order out of chaos” by bursting China’s property bubble
China is at the start of its biggest economic shake-up since 1978, when Deng Xiaoping launched his post-Mao reform programme. President Xi Jinping’s ‘Common Prosperity’ policy aims to retain his focus on increasing living standards. But it wants to spread the wealth far more widely. The electricity rationing now underway across China highlights the need […]
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