we go into the week leading up to the world climate conference, which begins next Sunday in Glasgow. A wealth of statements on this will be read, heard and seen. We start with the domestic industry. There is a risk that the EU and Germany will “move so far away from the rest of the world that industrial competitiveness will be massively impaired,” warns BASF boss Martin Brudermüller in our cover story. “National special routes don’t help,” assists Evonik boss Christian Kullmann.
And the behavioral economist from Cologne, Axel Ockenfels, criticizes the EU for another reason: “If you go to the next world climate conference and declare that the climate goals have already been set regardless of the behavior of other countries, you give up bargaining power.” And he says: “Climate goals do not reduce emissions.”
However, the term “climate club” is as ambiguous as it is indefinite. And if the “club” is to encompass the whole world right from the start, it could take a long time to achieve efficient environmental protection.
Top jobs of the day
Find the best jobs now and
be notified by email.
Regardless of the criticism from the industry, Robert Habeck is convinced: “If Olaf Scholz is elected Chancellor, he will be Climate Chancellor. Also because we are in the government. “
That said the co-boss of the Greens last night at “Anne Will”. And the praised vice-chancellor-maybe-soon-full-chancellor praised Germany’s role model function in the fight against climate change on ARD: “There is the necessary economic power and scientific performance here to develop the necessary technologies.”
You have to achieve the expansion goals. For example, the auto industry wants to build 2000 charging points per week for electromobility, but this number is currently not even a month. Incidentally, Habeck confirmed that there is no dynamic when it comes to finance: the Liberals prevented reforms in property and inheritance taxes, while the SPD and the Greens prevented a reduction in corporate tax. Sometimes the traffic light is red for a long time.
It is the oldest bank in the world – and currently the greatest burden in Italy’s economic policy: Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS). It has now been announced that the long-planned sale of the nationalized bank to rival Unicredit has failed. The negotiations were broken off and would no longer continue, so Unicredit and the Ministry of Economic Affairs in unison.
Prime Minister Mario Draghi has to sell the traditional bank, which was saved by the state in 2017 with 5.4 billion euros, by mid-2022, according to the agreement with the EU. The deal apparently failed because Unicredit demanded that the state should put a further 6.3 billion in the Monte Paschi in view of the necessary corrections in the business books.
Dante comments: “Wherever there can be conflict, there has to be a decision.”
Resilience is discussed extensively in articles and at business congresses. But the truths behind the catchphrase are described by the economist Markus K. Brunnermeierwho teaches at Princeton University in the United States. With “The Resilient Society” he delivered a fundamental piece of work – for which a prominent jury denied “German Business Book Prize” awarded.
The Handelsblatt held the event for the 15th time, partners were again Goldman Sachs and the Frankfurt Book Fair. The Brunnermeier, who specializes in financial policy, currently considers it pointless, in view of permanent zero interest rates, to demand more resilience from monetary policy, i.e. a resilient ability to adapt. The leeway would now lie with fiscal policy, but low interest rates could not be permanent, he explained: “Now politicians should try to reduce debt and create new reserves for the next shock. Only then are you more resilient. “
Brunnermeier also added the wish that the European Central Bank should be a little more like the Deutsche Bundesbank again.
(Photo: Uta Wagner for Handelsblatt)
The jury also awarded a special prize for the “best business book of the year” “How we can prevent the climate catastrophe” by Bill Gates. The laudation was given by the entrepreneur Verena Pausder, who had received this special award last year.
In an exclusive interview with Handelsblatt the Microsoft co-founder said he wrote the book to help understand “how difficult it is to solve the climate problem – and that it is still possible.” It is about getting the citizens involved. You need their consumption, their votes and their behavior to get from the global emissions of 51 billion tons of CO2 per year to zero.
Bill Gates thinks little or nothing of the tendency of his billionaire colleagues Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Richard Branson to fly into space: “I do not share an interest in space with them.” His two great passions are rather global health care and climate change.
Incidentally, the first business book award winner in 2007 was Daniel Schäfer, a seasoned journalist who has worked for “Frankfurter Allgemeine”, “Financial Times”, “Handelsblatt” and Bloomberg. In his keynote speech, the current partner at the communications agency Finsbury Glover Hering dealt with the future of journalism. He developed three main theses.
- There are professionals at work. Journalism has become very professional, for example there are hardly any invitation trips that lead to articles of convenience. Modern data analysis today also shows what readers wanted.
- Paid models are on the rise. Subscribers are the future, the free culture is on the decline. People are increasingly willing to pay for quality digital journalism.
- The demand for quality journalism is unbroken. 53 percent of Germans would trust traditional news sources and only 14 percent would trust social media. In the young audience, however, it looks different. Here the traditional media would have to “accelerate their change again” and invest more money in digital strategy and technology such as data analysis and artificial intelligence.
Schäfer summed up in his lecture of open words, but not everyone would manage it Even in the digital age, quality journalism has “a bright future”. A must for media experts.
(Photo: Getty Images for ZFF)
And then there is Oliver Ziegenbalg, 50, who the streaming service Netflix made from a screenwriter to a successful producer. The offspring of a family of mathematicians, who initially studied business mathematics himself, produced the successful cult miniseries “The Billion Dollar Code”, the story of some Berlin artists and nerds who came up with something like “Google Earth” at an early stage – long before Google even existed . Therefore they sued the US group. The case is based on a true story, but has been pimped up in a way that is typical of the genre.
Ziegenbalg is happy about his multi-million dollar budget. “The great thing about Netflix is that if they want that, then they just want it”, he says. Nobody wanted to see scripts and collateral, the Americans would have simply declared: “Here’s the money, we believe you will manage it.” This is how Ziegenbalg, who previously delivered the movie “25 km / h”, is suddenly become the master of big budgets: “That gives me wings.” We end there with Jean de La Fontaine, the poet of fables: “With the wings of time, sadness flies away.”
I wish you a fabulous start to the week that gives you wings.
I warmly greet you
you
Hans-Jürgen Jakobs
Senior editor
You can subscribe to the Morning Briefing here: