As we discussed last month, world leaders at the climate summit in the United Arab Emirates realized that their experiment to transform the global energy system is very, very expensive.
According to the European Commission President, they need trillions of dollars of funding every year, not billions.
They already committed and spent trillions of dollars of global taxpayer money on the agenda. Not enough. They need to tap private capital, they say.
But this comes as appetite for the agenda and for climate finance has deteriorated over the past year.
And that's clearly reflected in the performance of the biggest clean energy ETF …
With that, this week they return to the place that shaped the climate agenda — the World Economic Forum, in Davos.
But the transformation getting most of the attention this week isn't energy, it's technology — generative AI. Attendees are said to be more interested in sitting in on workshops to learn about AI, rather than listening to panels theorizing climate disaster.
Here are some key takeaways from Davos today, from two guys that know the capabilities and development stage of generative AI better than anyone:
Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft calls generative AI "expertise at your fingertips." He says this is year two of a paradigm shift, and that 2024 is the year generative AI will scale. And he calls it a "productivity revolution."
Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI (developer of ChatGPT) says the next iteration of GPT is in the "reasonably close future" and "the world is going to change." He says it's a tool for productivity, which will magnify what we can do. And he says costs will go down, capabilities will go up.
As we discussed yesterday, it's productivity enhancing, it's growth enhancing, and it may be deflationary.