Future Agenda

More on Privacy - Google and Facebook

After the recent future of privacy event, interesting to see how quickly the mainstream coverage of consumer data privacy issues is accelerating. The highly public Facebook and Google U turns of the past week are causing many to start to question what is being done with their data and how it could impact their lives. For me the way in which Google are reported to be planning to roll out their facial recognition technologies across multiple platforms shows just how quickly the world of Blade-Runner and Minority Report is taking shape around us. By comparison the collection of personal data from non-secure wifi networks by the Google Street-View team is blatantly wrong. The Facebook errors of judgement are however simply taking too many liberties and the retrenchment back to a sensible policy will hopefully come pretty soon. The leader in this week's Economist eloquently sums it up:

"The worst thing is Facebook’s underlying prejudice against privacy. Sign up and it assumes you want to share as much data as possible; if not, you have to change the settings, which can be a fiddly business. The presumption should be exactly the opposite: the default should be tight privacy controls, which users may then loosen if they choose. If Facebook fails to simplify and improve its privacy policy, it will justly risk the wrath of regulators—and many more Facebook suicides."

Is Water the New Oil?

Just finished new presentation for a talk am doing at Blake Lapthorn in Oxford on Wednesday. Looking at the Future of Water, takes on the challenge of whether or not water is the new oil and if not why not. Be interesting to see how (very impressive) audience respond!

Implications Discussions

Good chat with Dave McCormick about how best we structure the implications from the programme. As Dave led the Shell team for the Technology Futures programmes in 2004 and 2007 he has lots of experience on how people inside and outside organisations best respond to new insights that challenge thinking. So great to bounce ideas around and plan approach etc.

Renminbi - Next Global Currency?

Even more discussion on what replaces the dollar / becomes the alternative global reserve currency. At a time when the Euro is under stress, McKinsey Quarterly has joined in the debate on the future role of the Renminbi with this interview with Geng Xiao, director of the Brookings-Tsinghua Center for Public Policy. Again, not as pluralistic as Rajiv Kumar's proposition of an Asian Euro as a secondary basket, but shows yet more signals and signposts that this is a probable future.

Sustainable Energy - Without The Hot Air

Spent a good proportion of the day reading a fascinating book - Sustainable Energy - Without The Hot Air. Written by David MacKay, Professor of Physics at Cambridge, this was recommended to me last year as the most compelling view of whether or not sustainable energy actually adds up. It is clear, well argued and full of insightful data that analyses each option in the overall energy picture in a highly revealing manner. Brilliant complement to the Future of Energy discussions. Can only recommend you look at the website and buy the book!

Migration in Europe

Am trying to build up some more informed data on the general migration trends for europe - this is providing some interesting views and insights into how people like to talk about the issue but with little actual information to support. An article in the Guardian yesterday quoted the UN figures expecting a 6% net decline in European population between now and 2050. So that is a drop from 732m to 691m people. But at the same time, this piece in the NY Times back in 2008, quoted an EU report that stated that "migratory pressure at the EU's borders and political instability and conflict could increase in the future." So how many people are actually expected to migrate into Europe from adjacent countries over the next decade?

According to the medium variant of data from UN Dept of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, the population of Europe in 2020 will be pretty much the same as it is in 2010 - 732m - but will have peaked in 2015 at around 734m. The lower variant predicts a gradual drop to 717m and the high variant a rise to 747m over the decade. This presentation by David Coleman of Oxford University illustrates how complex the migration issue is, but at the same time highlights that, although the most attractive topic, migration is one of the most difficult issues to predict reliability to due poor data and a multitude of influencing factors.

Looking at EU data, this 2008 release from Eurostat suggests that "from 2015 onwards deaths would outnumber births, and hence population growth due to natural increase would cease. From this point onwards, positive net migration would be the only population growth factor." In addition this report also from 2008 suggests that net migration flows in the EU15 will halve between 2004 and 2050. The problem here is differentiating between migration within the EU15, the EU27 and the whole of Europe vs. migration from outside.

Coming back to the core issue, this EU report from 2008, includes the following paragraph:

"Europe's immediate neighbourhood, the Middle East and North Africa region has the world's second fastest growing population, after sub-Saharan Africa. Demographic developments in South East Europe and in the European CIS countries will be similar to that in the EU. Future migration flows towards the EU will mainly arrive from the Mediterranean region, in view of differences in living standards and population trends exacerbated by natural resource constraints." But notes that "There are however wide variations in demographic patterns between and within Member States."

It then goes on to explain that although "net migration from developing to developed countries is expected to average 2.3 million persons a year after 2010," the countries in Europe most expected to experience net population growth from migration are few in number - the UK, France, Netherlands and Spain being the top ones, but "in terms of annual averages, the major net receivers of international migrants in Europe between 2005 and 2050 are projected to be Germany (150.000), Italy (139.000), the UK (130.000) and Spain (123.000)."

All useful information but, so far, not conclusive. More investigation and discussion on this important issue clearly required going forward?

Under the Radar Catalysts

Have just posted a comment on the main future agenda commentary blog on the REDD forestry agreement from Copenhagen with a note that this is under the radar for many. Although somewhat tangential to the core headline activities (and failures) from the last two weeks, many involved in the climate change agenda see this as an important milestone for the future.

Mulling about this prompts me to think what may be the other 'under the radar' catalysts for the next decade. As with other areas of challenge, in the climate change arena it is often more newsworthy (and also more interesting for many) to focus on the big ticket issues - the shift to electric mobility etc - and to ignore others. But in the past, in the area of policy, it has often been the tangential issues and the means by which they came into force that have had sustained impact - take the labour laws around smoking in Ireland that acted as the catalysts for the global smoking ban movement.

Over next few days we will be sifting though all the initial feedback and starting to link and group the key insights - so will see which ones are potentially under the radar catalysts.

New Nuclear

Half way thru Copenhagen, lots of discussion of possible outcomes in the papers. In The Economist several related energy articles worth a read. This one highlights new research from the IEA that 2030 could well be the year of peak oil. Many comments already added to the site with varied perspectives and implications being discussed. 

So, if renewables and nuclear are increasingly seen as the way to, then worth a look at this article on nuclear next generation options. Some key sentences:

"With 53 new reactors under construction around the world and dozens more planned, the main difficulties facing nuclear scientists now are to reduce the threat of proliferation, improve efficiency and do something about the growing stock of nuclear waste in indefinite temporary storage.These new priorities favour new sorts of reactor. Taking the lead in the development of the next generation of reactors is an international programme called the Generation IV International Forum (GIF)."

"The technology underpinning civilian nuclear power-generation has not progressed much since the 1950s when a small number of prototype commercial reactors were first brought online."

"In the near term most new reactors will continue to be PWRs."

"The six most promising “generation IV” designs identified by the GIF from an original list of over 100 concepts depart markedly from the light-water moderated, once-through models that dominate the existing fleet."

The article then goes through the six options in detail and weighs up the varied options. As more governments start to announce nuclear intentions, the decision of which new designs of reactors they back will be a pivotal one. This is a good article on the alternatives that are becoming available.

World Bank and McKinsey on Future of Water

The World Bank and McKinsey have just published a new report on the future water challenges. Charting Our Water Future reviews the key drivers of change and advocates a more integrated economic approach to water management and a potential transformation of the water sector. Key comments include:

"By 2030, projected population and economic growth will lead to global water demand 40% in excess of current supply if no or inadequate action is taken in the coming years. This would leave one-third of the world's population with access to only half the water it needs."

"Governments and private institutions must invest $50 billion-$60 billion annually between now and 2030 to avoid future water shortages causing serious economic and environmental consequences"

"Studying the situation in China, India, South Africa and São Paulo state, Brazil – four regions that will collectively account for 40% of the world's population, 30% of global GDP and 42% of projected water demand in 2030 – future demand for water can be met through cost-effective measures and existing technologies.If a balanced portfolio of demand- and supply-side measures is adopted in each country, the projected water requirements in 2030 can be met at an estimated cost of $19 billion per year for these countries, just under 0.06% of their combined forecast GDP for that year. Globally, the cost would amount to around $50 billion-$60 billion per year."

Michael Mack, CEO of Syngenta and Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, chairman of Nestlé, both questioned the idea of water as a “human right” during a press conference on Monday to launch the report. Brabeck-Letmathe said people had a right to water for their basic needs, but argued that “it's not a human right to wash your car, to fill up your swimming pool, to water your golf course”.

 

Population Growth and Climate Change

Very good discussion last night on Radio 4 about the link between population growth and climate change. The pre Copenhagen Frontiers programme brought together three people with provocative views on the reasons why it is the sheer number of us on the planet that is both driving the problem and also presenting the greatest challenges for dealing with it. John Guillebaud - Emeritus Professor of Family Planning and Reproductive Health at University College London, David Satterthwaite - Senior Fellow in Human Settlements at the International Institute for Environment and Development, and Karen Newman -Coordinator at the Population and Sustainability Network, collectively provided some compelling views. Well worth listening to it on i-player.