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• Japan says it will ban sales of new gasoline-powered-vehicles in the mid-2030s: That plan is similar to California’s and many European nations’. An exception would be made for gas-electric hybrid cars after 2035 under the plan. Giants like Toyota, Honda Motor Co., and Nissan all make gas-powered and hybrid vehicles. Toyota President Akio Toyoda objects to the move. Moving too quickly, he said, speaking for an auto industry association, means “the current business model of the car industry is going to collapse.” He also said the electricity grid can’t handle so many electric vehicles and pointed out that Japan currently generates 80% of its electricity with coal, natural gas, and oil. Government officials said automakers need to change that business model. Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga took notice of the contradiction between Toyoda’s objections to the plan and the Toyota chief’s backing of the government’s goal of a carbon-neutral Japan by 2050. Reducing carbon emissions “should be tackled as a strategy for growth, not as a limitation on growth.” Suga said.
• China set to overtake U.S. economically in 2028, years earlier than previously predicted: The UK-based Centre for Economics and Business Research in its annual report released Saturday pushed back the date for when China will surpass the United States as the world’s largest economy to 2028. Just last year, it predicted 2033-4. The CEBR stated, “For some time, an overarching theme of global economics has been the economic and soft power struggle between the United States and China. […] “The COVID-19 pandemic and corresponding economic fallout have certainly tipped this rivalry in China’s favor.”The consultancy group analyzed growth prospects in 193 nations, finding that China had sprung back from the impacts of COVID-19 and would grow 2% in 2020. That’s less than half the growth level China has undergone in its previous lowest one-year gain in gross domestic product since 1992. Experts think the U.S. economy has contracted about 5% this year, slightly more than the planetwide GDP decline of 4.4%. Douglas McWilliams, the CEBR’s deputy chairman, said: “The big news in this forecast is the speed of growth of the Chinese economy. We expect it to become an upper-income economy during the current five-year plan period (2020-25). And we expect it to overtake the US a full five years earlier than we did a year ago.” In the early part of the decade that begins in six days, Japan is expected to slip from third place to fourth behind India, with Germany slipping to fifth, and the UK to sixth.
• Deepfake message from Queen Elizabeth aired on Britain’s Channel 4 stirs debate: Broadcaster says video, which shows a digitally altered monarch making remarks about Prince Harry and ending with a dance of sorts was intended to be a warning about fake news, the broadcaster said.
• There’s a blueprint for carbon-neutral buildings, but few are getting constructed: For nearly a dozen years, the American Institute of Architects has pushed its members to design in a climate-friendly manner, with a goal of “net zero” edifices by just 10 years from now. Progress is excruciatingly slow. In 2019, just 27 of the 19,000 building-design firms owned by AIA reported meeting their annual mark. Worldwide, the UN reports that about 38% of greenhouse gas emissions come from lighting, heating, and constructing buildings, which is about the same as in the United States at 40%. Around 10% of those emissions come the construction itself. The problem, the AIA has discovered, is that architects have a hard time talking firms into building designs that few of their clients want. Mike Fowler, a senior associate at Mithun Inc., a Seattle-based architecture firm that has hit the mark,“ told The Wall Street Journal , “The architecture profession tends to give what the client asks for and the vast majority of clients aren’t asking” for green structures. Mithun presents at least one energy-efficient design option to its clients and tries to educate them on climate benefits and potential cost savings, he said. But building owners are leery of the extra 2%-3% upfront costs and the lack of extensive contractor experience in putting up high-efficiency buildings. “We have off-the-shelf technologies to do this,” said Christoph Reinhart, director of the Building Technology Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Architecture and Planning. Those energy-efficiency investments—such as extra insulation and solar panels—pays off in about seven years, but most commercial investors want a quicker return. More proof that the market isn’t capable of making our needed energy transformation without regulations requiring the standards necessary to get there.
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• President-elect Joe Biden calls on Trump to sign pandemic relief package: Trump has given mixed messages about whether he will sign the congressionally approved $892 billion package and has attacked it for not providing enough aid to out-of-work Americans. While Trump was golfing Friday (though his staff claimed he was having business meetings and phone calls throughout the day), the relief bill was flown to Mar-a-Lago for his signature. But so far, there’s been no indication that he does plan to sign it. Biden said: “It is the day after Christmas, and millions of families don’t know if they’ll be able to make ends meet because of President Donald Trump’s refusal to sign an economic relief bill approved by Congress with an overwhelming and bipartisan majority. This abdication of responsibility has devastating consequences. Today, about 10 million Americans will lose unemployment insurance benefits. In just a few days, government funding will expire, putting vital services and paychecks for military personnel at risk. In less than a week, a moratorium on evictions expires, putting millions at risk of being forced from their homes over the holidays.”
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