Weekend Box: COP27, Penguin merger & more
Welcome to the Weekend Box, Audley’s weekly round-up of interesting or obscure political, business and cultural news from around the world.
WILL COP27 BE A COP OUT?
On Sunday, the UN’s COP27 will officially kick off in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. In the UK at least, the build-up to the landmark climate conference has been characterised by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s indecisiveness and climate activist Greta Thunberg’s scathing 'greenwashing' assessment. But what does the conference have in store for those making their way to Sharm el-Sheikh?
Egypt will welcome a host of politicians, civil servants and activists under the direction of four key themes: ‘Mitigation’ to try and keep global warming to ‘well below’ 2c, ‘Adaption’ to enhance resilience to extreme weather events, ‘Finance’ to create adequate climate funds for international use, and ‘Collaboration’ to ensure there is active participation in the agreements that are made.
Unofficially labelled ‘the implementation COP’ by Sameh Shoulkry, Minister of Foreign Affairs and President of COP27, those attending will have their work cut out.
The Paris Agreement treaty signed in 2015 and its goal to limit global warming to below two degrees will be at the centre of discussions once again. Many climate scientists, echoing the UNEP’s emissions gap report from 2021, say that even if the more ambitious national 2030 climate targets are implemented, the world is on a path towards a 2.7 degree increase, therefore the ‘mitigation’ target of 2 degrees is seemingly unworkable before the conference has even begun.
For years climate scientists along with commentators have repeated that ‘action is needed’ and while politicians have committed to pledges, resources and action are quite another thing. Right now, the climate crisis is becoming ever more apparent in different parts of the globe, such as in Pakistan, where relentless floods and population displacement have turned the country upside down. It seems despite criticism levelled, there has never been a greater need for policymakers to show up and close the ‘say-do’ gap.
Hopefully, diplomats and the world’s top politicians, including Sunak, will commit to COP's unofficial title and move beyond ambiguous and unrealistic targets and indeed begin to ‘implement’.
Image credit/Ben Sutherland on Flickr/License
JUDGE CLOSES BOOK ON PENGUIN MERGER
On Monday, following a year of speculation and a battle in court, a US District Judge blocked the merger between world-leading publishers Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster in what has been called a triumph for authors.
Judge Florence Pan announced in a statement that the deal, which was expected to give Penguin Random House owners Bertelsmann approximately a third of the American book market, could “substantially…lessen competition…for the U.S. publishing rights to anticipated top-selling books.” This echoes the many who decried the merger arguing that it would give Penguin a hegemony over US publishing that would enable them to reduce author advances and consumers’ choice of books.
The Department of Justice filed a suit to block the merger in 2021, marking the first major antitrust action by the Biden administration after the US president signed an executive order to increase American business competition in July 2021. The acquisition of Simon & Schuster was first announced in November of the previous year after owner ViacomCBS put the publisher up for auction. Bertelsmann dominated the competition for the US publisher, which included Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp and French media group Vivendi, with a bid of over $2bn. The Financial Times reports that, prophetically, Murdoch decided not to top this bid for fear of the regulatory hurdles News Corp could face if they were to acquire Simon & Schuster.
Penguin Random House shared that they will “immediately request an expedited appeal” to Judge Pan’s decision, describing the ruling as “an unfortunate setback for readers and authors” and the merger as “pro-competitive.” In other corners, however, the outcome has been celebrated. Famed horror author Stephen King, the government’s star witness in the antitrust trial, shared on Twitter that he was “delighted” and argued that “[t]he proposed merger was never about readers and writers; it was about preserving (and growing) PRH's market share.”
Image credit/Frank Schwichtenberg/License
BEIJING BUDDIES
Yesterday, Germany’s Social Democrat chancellor, Olaf Scholz travelled to Beijing for a one-day visit, making him the first Western leader to visit the country since the start of the pandemic. Amid geopolitical tensions between China and the West, pressure is mounting on Scholz from all quarters to take a tougher line. Many observers believe Germany, which last year was China’s top trading partner for the sixth consecutive year, is in danger of making much the same mistakes that it once made with Russia. While Germany’s three-party coalition government has announced its intention to reduce its economic dependence on the country, Scholz spoke of having ‘economic ties as equals' following his visit.
Indeed, his choice of delegation to Beijing, which was made up of 12 CEOs of German blue-chip firms, including the bosses of Merck, Siemens and Volkswagen, indicates that German business is still top of mind over other concerns. Tellingly, he also snubbed President Macron’s proposal for a Franco-German visit, an idea intended to prevent China from playing off one EU state against another.
There is a reason for Scholz’s perceived softness. Home in Germany, the Chancellor faces a backlash over spiralling energy bills and as Audley found in research commissioned for the Atlantic Future Forum, rising costs are likely to take preference with the public over concerns about international security. Pivoting drastically from Angela Merkel’s pro-engagement policy could be costly and unpopular, but equally, Scholz risks defying the position of the Greens and liberal FDP. This clash was apparent when reports surfaced last month that Scholz was going to approve efforts by Chinese state-owned shipping giant Cosco to buy a foothold in a container port in Hamburg.
This position could also be at the expense of Germany’s relationship with Western allies, with the White House stating that a visit of this character would erode western unity. With China waiting to exploit any discord, the Chancellor is treading a fine line in his pursuit of economic cooperation.
Image credit/Yortw on Flickr/License
THEM'S THE FAX
Ofcom may finally have sounded the death knell – or more fittingly perhaps, the strained and bleep-ridden whine of death – of one of the most infamous pieces of communications technology in history: the fax machine.
On Tuesday, the regulator shared that it was considering dropping legislation for telecoms providers to provide fax services under the Universal Service Order (USO). Without this obligation it is speculated that fax machines, which were left in the dust by technological advancements long ago as it stands, will finally be consigned to history.
While few people may mourn its loss, they might pause to consider the merits and dangers of its replacements.
There is no denying that mobile communications methods like WhatsApp give us faster response times and rapid access to the information we (think we) need. Despite myriad GDPR and patient safety issues, the NHS changed their stance on the use of such channels and issued guidance earlier this year stating: “It is…fine to use commercial, off-the-shelf applications such as WhatsApp and Telegram where there is no practical alternative and the benefits outweigh the risk.” Interestingly, it is reported a number of fax machines are still in use within the NHS.
So as we may be saying a long-overdue goodbye to the fax machine, let us not forget the virtues of a single and uniform communications methodology, used and understood by all to be the authoritative source of information, such as it was.
Image credit/Caleb Roenigk on Flickr/License
HARD WORDS FOR 2022
This week, Collins English Dictionary announced that it had chosen ‘permacrisis’ as its word of the year. The lexicographers of Collins say the term “perfectly embodies the dizzying sense of lurching from one unprecedented event to another, as we wonder bleakly what new horrors might be around the corner.”
The word of the year can certainly lay claim to being a snappy representation of public discourse and the prevailing mood. Partygate, warm banks, quiet quitting, lawfare and sportswashing made Collins’ shortlist, reflecting a year pock-marked with controversy, unrest and concern.
It was certainly a less tech-centric list compared to 2021, which featured NFT, crypto and metaverse. But thankfully, the use of the covid-centric words of 2020 are beginning to fall off the lexicon: lockdown, self-isolate, social distancing, key-worker, furlough.
Nevertheless, in comparison to the more playful words selected in previous years – geek (2013), photobomb (2014) and binge-watch (2015) – we seem to have entered a period of considerable seriousness. Permacrisis indeed!
And that’s it for this week. I hope you found something of interest that you might want to delve into further. If so, please get in touch at cwilkins@audley.uk.com.
For now, that’s the weekend box officially closed.