by Charlie Edwards | Jan 23, 2008 | Climate and resource scarcity, Influence and networks
Alex has blogged before about black swans and the human assumption that the unexpected can be predicted by extrapolating from variations in statistics based on past observations. Nassim Taleb argues they can’t. But that hasn’t deterred Oxford Analytica, the consulting firm that draws on a network of over 1,000 senior faculty members at Oxford. The company has developed an Early Warning system to meet exactly these needs, catchily named the ‘Global Stress Points Matrix’. According to OA:
The Global Stress Points Matrix provides a means of identifying and monitoring potential political and economic surprises and threats. These may appear unlikely but would have severe consequences should they occur. It is a disciplined approach for ‘stepping outside conventional wisdom’ and uses Oxford Analytica’s global network of experts to ‘ask the right questions’ and the Oxford Analytica Daily Brief process to monitor developments.
There’s a cool matrix too:
Some of the stress points:
1 CHINA/TAIWAN: Armed hostilities
2 US/IRAN: US strike on Iran
3 INTERNATIONAL: Human avian flu pandemic
4 UNITED STATES: Deep recession
5 INTERNATIONAL: Oil price shock
6 PAKISTAN: State collapse
7 INTERNATIONAL: Return to protectionism
13 SCIENCE/TECHNOLOGY: Increasing climate regulation
14 RUSSIA: Return to regional ascendancy
18 NORTH KOREA: Military conflict
19 NIGERIA: Large-scale disorder in the Delta
21 CENTRAL ASIA: Risk of major disorder
22 BALKANS: Return to serious
If any of this does actually happen don’t say we didn’t warn you….
by Charlie Edwards | Jan 23, 2008 | Conflict and security, UK
Tomorrow the British Government will publish its Counter-Terrorism Bill. Ministers are already trying to persuade MPs that a key component of the Bill – the increase in pre-charge detention from 28 days up to 42 days – is crucial. According to today’s Mirror and Evening Standard, Tony McNulty, Minister for Security, Counter-terrorism, Crime and Policing is, in a bid to gain support for the Bill stressing to MPs that, ‘two or three 9/11s’ or ‘two 7/7s’ could happen.
We know there is a real threat to the UK from terrorism. But as Alex pointed out at the week-end, the key battle in counter-terrorism is about narrative, influence, and who gets to frame the debate in people’s minds. McNulty doesn’t seem to have taken this on board – even though last year he readily admitted that the Government had made mistakes in its approach.
In a speech at a Labour Party conference fringe event, he suggested that the Government was ‘coming round to the view that says, actually, the rules of the game haven’t changed’ – a reference to Tony Blair’s approach after the terrorist attacks on the London network in 2005. Furthermore, he continued:
- The more these things are tackled through normality, with some little exceptions on top, rather than absolutely by exception, the better.
- The more any response is rooted in our civil liberties and human rights, with whatever slight tweaks at the top, the better.
- Lessons had been learned from last summer’s botched terror raids in London by not rushing headlong into looking at legislation instantly and with very short shrift, but instead by taking the time to develop a broader counter-terrorism response by government in all its facets.
Some reforms are clearly needed. Some aspects of the Bill may even have the support of the human rights organisation, Liberty. But by leading with the threat, the Government is likely to increase opposition to the Bill – and with it the likelihood of a damaging defeat for the Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
by Alex Evans | Jan 23, 2008 | Influence and networks, UK
According to the Number 10 website,
Downing Street today announced the appointment of Jeremy Heywood as Permanent Secretary, No.10 Downing Street. This is the most senior civil service post in No.10 Downing Street, reporting directly to the Prime Minister and Cabinet Secretary. This move follows the appointment by HM Treasury of Tom Scholar as Managing Director, International and Finance, with particular responsibility for domestic and global financial markets and institutions.
As Permanent Secretary in No.10, Mr Heywood will assume the responsibilities of Principal Private Secretary and overall head of 10 Downing Street, reporting to the Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service, Sir Gus O’Donnell. He will work closely with Stephen Carter, appointed earlier this month as Chief of Strategy and Principal Adviser and the chief special adviser at 10 Downing Street. He will remain a member of the Cabinet Office’s board.
Benedict Brogan comments:
Mr Heywood has been impressing ministers since he worked for Ken Clarke. He recently returned to public service after a lucrative spell with Morgan Stanley. Some of you may remember him better as Tony Blair’s PPS, who ran the former Prime Minister’s private office with great panache between 1999 and 2003. Among his achievements was keeping channels open with the Brown Treasury despite the war between the two. It is an indication of the organisational challenge faced by Mr Brown that he has agreed to call in Mr Heywood. He will run the Civil Service bit of the machine, alongside Stephen Carter, who runs the political side. Seven months in, Mr Brown is starting all over.
Old lags from the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit still reminisce fondly about the days when Heywood was Blair’s PPS and Geoff Mulgan was in charge of policy at Number 10; it was, one used to note, “the last time Number 10 actually worked”. Staff at the Observer must be feeling pretty prescient, meanwhile: back in 2004 they tipped Heywood as one of 80 “prodigiously talented young people” destined for stardom, observing that
Few people know how government works as well as Jeremy Heywood. First, he was Principal Private Secretary to the then Chancellor, Norman Lamont, who called him one of the most intelligent people he had ever met. Then he did the same job for Tony Blair, and was described as ‘indispensable’. He’s now getting a taste of the private sector as a managing director at Morgan Stanley, but a triumphant return to the civil service as Cabinet Secretary is distinctly possible.
He may not be there quite yet – but certainly getting closer. Meanwhile Tom Scholar departs as No 10 Chief of Staff (as he always said he would in under a year) to become the Treasury’s managing director for international issues and finance. Tom was Britain’s Executive Director at the IMF, so he’ll be able to hit the ground running there with no problems (other than the meltdown of the global financial system).
by Alex Evans | Jan 23, 2008 | Climate and resource scarcity, Conflict and security, North America
US unwillingness to sign up to binding climate standards, either domestic or international, is leading to a strange unintended consequence: the extent of regulatory uncertainty for power companies means that they’re unable to invest in new electricity generation capacity – and it’s hurting American energy security. The FT’s Sheila McNulty explains,
Concern is growing that the US could face electricity capacity shortages as utility companies delay much-needed new power plants, fearing restrictive carbon emissions laws under the next administration. Without additional capacity, some areas are projected to fall below their target capacity margins within two or three years.
“There is going to have to be a build-out in power to meet demand, but the environmental uncertainty out there is making it slow,” said Bruce Williamson, chief executive at Dynegy, which provides electricity to wholesale customers. “People just don’t know what the rules are going to be.” Besides this, the energy companies’ financing is becoming tougher because of the market turmoil. “Things are going to get pretty tight,” said Mr Williamson.
Rick Sergel, president and chief executive of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, which is responsible for assuring proper operation of the power grid, said electricity usage was projected to grow more than twice as fast as committed resources over the next decade. “Many people are caught up in debates over which kind of generation we should build. Simply put, we need it all,” said Mr Sergel. “We are at the point where we can no longer afford to delay these decisions. We are jeopardising reliability by doing so. Every mechanical system has limits.”
by Alex Evans | Jan 23, 2008 | Climate and resource scarcity, Europe and Central Asia, Influence and networks, South Asia, UK
Interesting to see this little nugget included in the UK / Indian communique resulting from Gordon Brown’s talks with Manmohan Singh:
Long-term convergence of per capita emission rates is an important and equitable principle that should be seriously considered in the context of international climate change negotiations.
Manmohan Singh’s getting pretty good at this – as readers will recall, he had a similar conversation with Angela Merkel after the Heiligendamm G8, which resulted in her pushing per capita convergence steadily through the second half of last year (as for instance in her speech at the UN High Level Event on climate at the end of September last year).
I’ve been arguing since then that European leaders need to get behind Merkel’s position – because espousing convergence as the means of sharing out a safe global emissions budget is Europe’s best shot at securing developing country buy-in to a globally agreed ceiling on greenhouse gas levels in the air, an absolute prerequisite for limiting warming to two degrees C (as Europe says it wants to).
India is the obvious partner in this enterprise. Its per capita emissions (a little over a tonne of CO2 per person) are way below the global average of 4.18 t/CO2 – so any system based on convergence will be plenty profitable for India. (I set out a fuller analysis of this argument in the speech I did for the Institute of Environmental Security after Bali.)
What’s ironic in all of this is that India was widely criticised for being ‘awkward’ at Bali – whilst China was lauded for being willing to talk about ‘commitments’ (even if not binding targets). Manmohan Singh looks, in other words, to be pushing a much more progressive position than his own negotiators. Maybe this is a subtle two track negotiating strategy, maybe it’s just incoherence in the Indian government – the balance of opinion in the climate debate would probably say the latter, but who knows.
Either way, Europe and India have a real chance here to grab the political momentum in climate talks between now and the G8 in Japan, if they can pull together a robust joint strategy.
