How do we know that extreme weather is becoming more common due to climate change? Nothing is certain in the business of climate change, but there are many hints that the unusual weather the world has seen in recent years is not a fluke. These clues include record-breaking heatwaves on land and sea and in most parts of the planet, severe floods and droughts, and extreme wildfires. To withstand the challenges of extreme weather events, policymakers, and business leaders will need to work together to build more resilient and adaptable systems.
Simultaneous Speech Translation (SST) will continue to transform international commerce
Microsoft recently launched speech translation technology that allows participants in a Teams meeting to see live captions of the conversions that are translated into a language of their choice. This is a big deal. There is even a story in the Old Testament suggesting that language-linked divisiveness was divinely inspired. The book of Genesis discusses a building that humans were constructing to reach the heavens: “The Lord said, ‘If as one people speaking the same language, they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.’” The structure came to be known as the Tower of Babel, where “babel” means a confused noise made by a number of voices.
Not to put too fine an edge on it, simultaneous speech translation is dismantling the Tower of Babel. English speakers – who have long had an edge when it comes to international commerce, especially trade in services – are in for some competition. With machine translation being so good, and getting better so fast, English speakers will soon find themselves in much more direct competition with the billions of service workers who don’t speak English. Machine translation won’t let them speak perfectly but perhaps well enough to participate in remote office work. The result will be a tsunami of global talent in the online service sectors. This will increase the choices facing employers or remote workers, generate more opportunities for high-skill low-wage workers in emerging markets, and create a lot more competition for advanced economy workers who have jobs that can be done remotely.
Super election cycle will disrupt trade policy
Simon J Evenett, Professor of International Trade and Economic Development at the University of St. Gallen, and Fernando Martin, Head of Analytics at Global Trade Alert
Nearly two billion people living in some of the most important economies on Earth will vote next year in elections. The run-up to polling day doesn’t normally make for enlightened trade policies because plenty of opportunistic politicians will try to blame foreigners for their own countries’ deficiencies. Already governments are maneuvering to deliver short-term political highs by whacking trading partners. The European Commission’s investigation into fast-growing imports of electric vehicles from China is cynically timed to deliver a verdict just before the elections to the European Parliament. Few US politicians will resist the siren call of being tough on Chinese trade and investment as November 2024’s American elections approach. Furthermore, so tight is that US election that the Biden Administration’s patience with the EU on steel will likely snap, leading to transatlantic trade tensions in 2024.
Geopolitical tension may tempt governments to weaponize trade flows
With geopolitical tension top of many executives’ minds, security of supply considerations will remain an important narrative for many governments and corporate buyers during 2024. Will Russia again tighten the screws on grain exports from Ukraine? Will China retaliate against harsher US trade and investment measures by curbing exports of the so-called ‘rare earth’ minerals, critical to the production of many IT products? Derisking pressures – a term used by many to signal reduced dependence on China and other geopolitical foes – won’t go away.