Tag: Steve Sedgwick

Many Italian parties are against China’s Belt and Road Initiative, foreign minister says

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Many Italian parties are against Rome’s participation in China’s Belt and Road Initiative, Antonio Tajani, the country’s foreign minister said Saturday, ahead of a critical decision on whether to quit the project.

In 2019, Rome sent shockwaves throughout the Western world when it signed up to the BRI — China’s massive infrastructure and investment plan aimed at boosting its influence across the world. At the time, analysts said that by joining the project, Italy was undermining Europe‘s ability to stand up to Beijing.

When former European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi took power in Rome in 2021, he froze the agreement. Two years down the line and with a new government in place, Italy is now having another think about its ties with China.

“The Italian message is very clear we want to work with China, we want to be present in China’s market, we are ready for Chinese investment, but as I said, it is important [to have a] level playing field,” said Tajani, who also serves as Italy’s deputy prime minister.

Italy is due to announce in the coming months if it is officially ending its participation in the landmark Chinese project.

Under the agreement the two parties can end the deal after five years, otherwise the partnership gets extended for another five-year term. Italy has until the end of the 2023 to inform China on whether it wants to end the deal.

Tajani is due to visit China in the coming days. Speaking to CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick at the Ambrosetti Forum, he said the trip won’t be difficult, but “it is important for us.”

Tajani, however, did not confirm any specific time for when Italy will unveil its final decision on whether to continue in the Belt and Road Initiative.

“The Italian Parliament is checking the situation. In this moment the countries without the Belt and Road Initiative, the European countries, are working better than us. For this, Italy will decide if [to] stay or not [to] stay in the Belt and Road Initiative. In the Parliament, many parties are against it,” he said.

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September 2, 2023
Nearly 25% of jobs are set to be disrupted in the next five years — and A.I. could play a key role: World Economic Forum

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Nearly 25% of jobs are set to be disrupted in the next five years, according to the World Economic Forum’s latest ‘Future of Jobs’ report.

10’000 Hours | Digitalvision | Getty Images

The world of work is set to go through major changes in the coming years — with almost a quarter of jobs changing in the next five years, according to a new report from the World Economic Forum.

Some 23% of jobs will be disrupted, WEF said in its ‘Future of Jobs’ report, with some eliminated and others created. Crucially, WEF expects there to be 14 million fewer jobs overall in five years’ time, as an estimated 83 million roles will disappear, while only 69 million will emerge.

“Overall the rate of change is quite high,” Saadia Zahidi, managing director at the WEF, told CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick and Geoff Cutmore Monday at the WEF’s growth summit in Geneva, Switzerland.

The report’s findings are largely based on a survey of 803 companies that employ a total of 11.3 million workers in 45 different economies around the world.

A huge range of factors will play a role in the disruption, according to WEF, from technological developments like artificial intelligence to climate change.

Concerns about technological changes having a negative impact on jobs have been growing, especially since generative A.I. tools like ChatGPT have entered the mainstream. And technology does appear to be one of the biggest drivers of job loss, the research found.

“The largest losses are expected in administrative roles and in traditional security, factory and commerce roles,” the report said, noting that the decline of administrative roles in particular will be “driven mainly by digitalization and automation.”

However, the surveyed companies do not see technological shifts as a negative overall.

“The impact of most technologies on jobs is expected to be a net positive over the next five years. Big data analytics, climate change and environmental management technologies, and encryption and cybersecurity are expected to be the biggest drivers of job growth,” the report reads.

Some of the sectors that could see boosted job creation linked to technology are education, agriculture and health, Zahidi explained.

“In part that is happening not because these are unsafe, low-paid, low-skilled jobs around the world. These are higher skilled, higher value add jobs enabled by technology in the fields of agriculture, health, education,” she said.

AI is described as a “key driver of potential algorithmic displacement” of roles in the report, and almost 75% of companies surveyed are expected to adopt the technology. Some 50% of the firms expect jobs to be created as a result, while 25% expect job declines.

Technology is also not the only factor at play when it comes to job disruption, according to WEF. In fact, it comes sixth on the list of factors leading to net job creation or elimination.

“It’s also economic growth, which is pretty tepid at the moment, it’s also sustainability and the rise of the green economy, it’s also supply chain changes and what’s happening sort of to this era of ‘deglobalization’,” Zahidi said.

Companies becoming greener and adopting higher environmental, social and governance standards are the two biggest drivers of job creation, surveyed companies said, whilst slowing economic growth is expected to be main contributor to job losses.

Other factors that are also likely to lead to job declines in the coming years include the fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic, supply shortages and the global cost of living crisis.

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May 2, 2023
Green transition won’t be perfect and we’ll need natural gas, World Energy Council CEO says

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The planet appears to be at a major crossroads when it comes to meeting climate-related goals.

Discussions about how to mitigate the effects of climate change are closely tied to the energy transition, which can broadly be seen as a plan to shift away from fossil fuels to a system in which renewables dominate.

It’s difficult to predict how the transition will pan out, given that it depends on a complex combination of factors, such as technology, finance and international cooperation.

The topic was covered in detail during a recent panel discussion moderated by CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick.

“We need to get electrification going faster,” said Angela Wilkinson, the secretary general and CEO of the London-based World Energy Council.

“We want it to be more renewable-powered electrification,” she added, before acknowledging that a huge amount of work will be needed.

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“We can’t let perfection be the enemy of the good in this, right? The reality is, to get renewables to scale we’re going to have to have other clean energy friends in the mix, we’re going to have to build multiple clean energy bridges.”

“We’re going to have to have hydrogen [doing the] lifting, we’re going to have to have gas with CCUS [carbon capture, utilization and storage] lifting, we’re going to have to have grid strengthening going on,” Wilkinson said.

The idea of using gas as a “transition” fuel that would bridge the gap between a world dominated by fossil fuels to one where renewables are in the majority is not a new one and has been the source of heated debate for a while now.

Is hydrogen the answer?

In recent years, hydrogen has been touted as a potentially crucial tool in the shift to a net-zero future.

Described by the International Energy Agency as a “versatile energy carrier,” hydrogen has a diverse range of applications and can be used in a wide range of industries.

One method of producing hydrogen involves electrolysis, a process through which an electric current splits water into oxygen and hydrogen.

Some call the resulting hydrogen “green” or “renewable” if the electricity used in the electrolysis process comes from renewable energy installations like wind or solar farms.

Over the past few years, major economies and businesses have looked to the emerging green hydrogen sector to decarbonize industries integral to modern life, although the vast majority of hydrogen generation today is still based on fossil fuels.

In looking at the overall picture, the World Energy Council’s Wilkinson stressed there are no easy answers.

“It’s not that it’s a simple issue of just swapping out one technology for another technology,” she said. “It’s a much more complex challenge than that.”

IPCC concerns

In March, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published a major report stressing the need for urgent action, with the U.N. secretary general describing it as a “survival guide for humanity.”

In a statement, Antonio Guterres said the report represented a “clarion call to massively fast-track climate efforts by every country and every sector and on every timeframe.”

Those findings loomed large over CNBC’s discussion. As the CEO of an organization established in 1923, the World Energy Council’s Wilkinson sought to contextualize the current debate.

“We started up in an era of energy for peace, we’ve worked through an era of energy for prosperity, and now we’re in this era of energy for people and planet,” she said.

“And it requires not just a change in thinking about what we need to do, it requires a change in thinking about who we need to do it with.”

“So if we’re really going to achieve what the IPCC is asking for, we’ve got to remember the energy transition is happening alongside industrial transitions, it’s happening alongside political transitions.”

Wilkinson also argued that the current era would require collaboration across borders, sectors and generations.

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April 2, 2023