Podcasts

17/01/2023

The concept of circular economy is gaining momentum - Trends Under the Macroscope #45

It is clear that humanity uses too many resources. In 2022, the ‘overshoot day’ was July 28, which means that to regenerate what humanity consumes today, we would need the equivalent of “1.75 Earths” in terms of area. As a result, the concept of circular economy, which was first pushed by environmental activists, is spreading more and more widely in society and in particular among political authorities: for example, the European Commission presented in 2022 two new packages of specific proposals, particularly with regard to packaging waste and on the generalization of the design of sustainable products.

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30/11/2022

How decarbonization impacts equity markets - Trends Under the Macroscope #43

In Europe, the decarbonization of the economy involves, among other things, the Emissions Trading System (ETS). The sharp rise in the price of the emissions allowances in recent years has had a significant impact on the equity markets, as shown in a recent IMF working paper.

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15/11/2022

The main takeaways of the World Energy Outlook 2022 - Trends Under the Macroscope #42

A true reference, the World Energy Outlook of the International Energy Agency (IEA) provides an overview of global energy markets. The current context makes this edition particularly interesting, the IEA qualifying the current crisis as the "first global energy crisis" that the world has known.

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21/10/2022

Elevated inflation exacerbates inequalities - Trends Under the Macroscope #41

Everyone has the intuition that the acceleration of inflation exacerbates inequalities. In the meantime, there are many reasons to look further into the subject. Recent ECB estimates show that inflation for the lowest income households would be almost 2 percentage points higher than for the highest income households, which is huge.

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07/10/2022

Cyber-protection needs are exploding - Trends Under the Macroscope #40

Issues related to cybersecurity become more critical in the current context. The European Commission has just unveiled its Cyber Resilience Act.

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20/09/2022

Demographics: what’s up? - Trends Under the Macroscope #39

The United Nations has just published its World population prospects 2022 report, which is really a reference document and gives us the opportunity to take stock of the major demographic trends.

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06/09/2022

Is the Inflation Reduction Act a real turning point for the decarbonization of the US economy? - Trends Under the Macroscope #38

The United States adopted the Inflation Reduction Act this summer, a major climate and energy bill. Democrats are touting it as the law with the largest climate investments in the country's history. This law includes many distinct spending items and it is important to analyze it in detail to appreciate the extent of progress.

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18/07/2022

The environmental issues of maritime transport - Trends Under the Macroscope #37

The oceans play a very big role in the global economy, given that more than 90% of global trade is transported by sea. Recent works have shown that tightening of environmental regulation of cargo ships can lead to spectacular gains in terms of public health.  In the years to come, additional efforts will be made to drastically reduce the sector's greenhouse gas emissions, very likely with the implementation of new technologies, such as the use of hydrogen.

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