In his opening remarks to the C40 World Mayors Summit – a forum for member cities to present innovative actions to slow global warming – the Secretary-General noted that cities, which contain more than half the world’s population, and have an “enormous climate footprint”, are “on the frontlines of sustainable and inclusive development”. Urban citizens,...Read More

“What gets measured,” Peter Drucker famously observed, “gets managed.” One might add a corollary that what goes unmeasured—or gets measured only superficially—risks being mismanaged or, at least, undermanaged. So it is with transformations. As we’ve noted before, the term “transformation” can be vague, and it too often refers only to minor or isolated initiatives. What...Read More

Public and investor-owned utilities alike are facing a dilemma: Americans are using less energy. Increasing efficiency and the shift to a service-oriented economy have combined to reduce electricity consumption on a per capita basis for several years running. It’s a trend that’s weighing on utility companies, and their bottom lines. Eight U.S. utilities had debt...Read More

He leads up the Ambition Team, which analyses the climate commitments made by countries, regions and cities across the world, which are vital to help slow down global warming. Dozens of commitments were made at the Climate Action Summit 2019 hosted by the UN Secretary-General, in New York in September. Chief amongst them was a...Read More

That’s the conventional wisdom: improve one part at a time, then move to the next, methodically and consistently. But it’s clear that this traditional view, with stability as the primary value, is increasingly wrong. It misses the intersections between the parts, which are where value tends to be lost. Research by our colleagues (see Kevin...Read More

The uptake of artificial intelligence (AI) is expected to create 133 million new jobs globally and “drastically change” the UK job market in the coming years, according to a new report. The findings come from the Harnessing the Power of AI: The Demand for Future Skills report, produced by global recruitment agency Robert Walters and...Read More

    Stable digital currencies—and particularly Facebook’s plans to launch one—have central bankers playing defense. For years, powerful central banks around the world have claimed to be studying digital currencies, and most have left open the possibility that one day they might launch their own. That day may be dawning—much earlier than anyone expected. In...Read More

Today, at the C40 World Mayors Summit in Copenhagen, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti — the newly elected C40 Chair — alongside the mayors of cities worldwide including Austin, Amsterdam, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Sydney and Tokyo, recognized a global climate emergency and announced their support for a Global Green New Deal. The broad coalition —...Read More

With 18 countries and the European Union now having ratified the amended treaty, from a total of 51 who have signed, including many of the countries which are part of the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), the official entry into force marks an important step to curb pollutants closely-linked to climate change, ecosystem degeneration, and potentially life-threatening human health. The Gothenburg Protocol, established back in 1999, sets forth legally-binding emissions reduction commitments for...Read More

The US unconventional sector has been in growth mode for years. Liquids production has risen by 5.1 million barrels per day since 2013, 85 percent of which has come from independents. 1 1. Upstream Data Tool, Wood Mackenzie, September 2019, woodmac.com. Numbers do not include offshore, coalbed methane, or heavy oil. In a previous article,...Read More