Germany as a leader towards a high-tech low carbon society?

Germany will lose its no. 1 position as the world’s export nation to China this year. 2008 is also the year when, for the first time in human history, more people will live in urban areas than rural. It is time for some re-thinking.

At a conference in Berlin today arranged by BITKOM the theme was climate change and resource efficiency. Instead of the usual focus on their own products the focus (for most of the time) was new services. Germany could play an important role in the shift from a “problem” to an “opportunity” perspective when it comes to climate change and business. BITKOM could play a key role in this. I know I’m an optimist, but I think it would be easy to get things going in Germany.

Hopefully CEBIT could follow the example of BITKOM and also focus on the services that the ICT sector can provide (not only the products)… If all goes well I might be there virtually (as I will be in India at the time for CEBIT).

Still working on a pledge that I will ask conference organizers to sign in order for me to go there. The pledge would be to follow-up and measure concrete progress after events. I think events like this one by BITKOM in Berlin is ready for this...

Germany as a leader towards a high-tech low carbon society?

Germany will lose its no. 1 position as the world’s export nation to China this year. 2008 is also the year when, for the first time in human history, more people will live in urban areas than rural. It is time for some re-thinking.

At a conference in Berlin today arranged by BITKOM the theme was climate change and resource efficiency. Instead of the usual focus on their own products the focus (for most of the time) was new services. Germany could play an important role in the shift from a “problem” to an “opportunity” perspective when it comes to climate change and business. BITKOM could play a key role in this. I know I’m an optimist, but I think it would be easy to get things going in Germany.

Hopefully CEBIT could follow the example of BITKOM and also focus on the services that the ICT sector can provide (not only the products)… If all goes well I might be there virtually (as I will be in India at the time for CEBIT).

Still working on a pledge that I will ask conference organizers to sign in order for me to go there. The pledge would be to follow-up and measure concrete progress after events. I think events like this one by BITKOM in Berlin is ready for this...

Trade and Climate with UNEP and others

Just spent two interesting days in Geneva (day 1 and day 2) where the links between trade and climate was discussed. Too much of the discussion focused on formal discussions and those from WTO defending the current trade system. Surprisingly little time was spent discussion what we need to do in order to deliver the necessary emission reductions.

Good to see that Benjamin Simmons is the lead on the trade/climate link at UNEP and that Ulrich Hoffman from UNCTAD is working hard to ensure that focus is on real results. Few if any people from China and India at the meeting though. So 30% of the global population and economies with a key role to play in the climate and trade was not represented, even if I did my best to bring an “emerging economy agenda” to the meeting.

The five areas of work that I presented was:

1. EGS: Developing and implementing a project based approach (tech trans/IPR/innovation)

2. Embedded CO2 in imported products: Turning an excuse for protectionism to an opportunity for innovative reform.

3. Dynamic effects of export: Exploring ways to estimate indirect and systemic effects of different products (outward investment)

4. Labels for sustainability (not reduced problems): Work with key label schemes to move from a product based approach to a service based approach

5. Supporting Sustainable export from China: Joint project with MOFCOM in China to explore support for sustainable trade

That the link between trade and climate is starting to reach mainstream discussions is very welcomed and hopefully we will see intensified discussions

Trade and Climate with UNEP and others

Just spent two interesting days in Geneva (day 1 and day 2) where the links between trade and climate was discussed. Too much of the discussion focused on formal discussions and those from WTO defending the current trade system. Surprisingly little time was spent discussion what we need to do in order to deliver the necessary emission reductions.

Good to see that Benjamin Simmons is the lead on the trade/climate link at UNEP and that Ulrich Hoffman from UNCTAD is working hard to ensure that focus is on real results. Few if any people from China and India at the meeting though. So 30% of the global population and economies with a key role to play in the climate and trade was not represented, even if I did my best to bring an “emerging economy agenda” to the meeting.

The five areas of work that I presented was:

1. EGS: Developing and implementing a project based approach (tech trans/IPR/innovation)

2. Embedded CO2 in imported products: Turning an excuse for protectionism to an opportunity for innovative reform.

3. Dynamic effects of export: Exploring ways to estimate indirect and systemic effects of different products (outward investment)

4. Labels for sustainability (not reduced problems): Work with key label schemes to move from a product based approach to a service based approach

5. Supporting Sustainable export from China: Joint project with MOFCOM in China to explore support for sustainable trade

That the link between trade and climate is starting to reach mainstream discussions is very welcomed and hopefully we will see intensified discussions

The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Trying to be provocative is not very interesting, but as Taleb actually has something very interesting to say it is easy to ignore his teenage way of writing.

Anyone who knows me understand that I would read a book where one of the first pages contains this gem: “Why do we keep focusing on the minutiae, not the possible significant large events, in spite of the obvious evidence of their huge influence? And, if you follow my argument, why does reading newspaper actually decrease your knowledge of the world?”

The theme of the book is how we deal with the things that never have happened before. How do we prepare for what we cannot know, especially if these are really massive events? But it is not done in a very structured way and it is one of these books that seems to focus more on sales on airports than actually contribute to some new thinking. It is entertainment, not education.

However, the use of models (by social scientists and economists) are dealt with in a brilliant way from time to time, and the book provides a lot of material for inspiration. It is inspiration of the best kind (i.e. when the author writes about an important issue, but you disagree with much of what is written…)

One of my favorites is on page 280 “Economists often invoke a strange argument by Milton Friedman that states that models do not have to have realistic assumptions to be acceptable – giving them license to produce severely defective mathematical representations of reality. The problem is of course that these Gaussianizantions do not have realistic assumptions and do not produce reliable results. They are neither realistic nor predictive.” This might be the only thing future students will learn about much of the national/political economy from the end of the 20^th Century… ;)

The issue on how we deal with things we have never seen before is very real in the case of climate change, we need to act before we have seen the consequences and with an issue that society was not made to deal with. Usually we create rules and regulations after the problem appears, but this is not possible this time as we might only have one chance.

PS
The cover of the book I bought in India is really nice, no text at all just the white and black swan, very simple...