Bunny Hugging
AI ground rules
Welcome to The Chief Brief. Every Sunday, I spotlight global, diverse, and innovative female leaders, and the news influencing them to change the world. The CB curates news from around the world, breaks down the story, and helps you connect with the women making news! It is my first step in a passion project to build a globally connected community of women leaders.
Happy Sunday!
Let’s talk about
Earth Day
I’ve personally never understood why we need a specific day earmarked to celebrate, or highlight things, and people important to us. Mother’s day, Father’s day, Women’s Day, Picnic Day, St. George’s Day - the list just grows every year! To me it feels like these allocated days are panacea for our year long guilt. Shouldn’t we acknowledge, highlight, and celebrate the things that are central to our lives, everyday? I know it’s not a popular opinion, but that’s the fabulous thing about opinions. We can all have them. By the way today, April 25th is also National Hug a Plumber Day, and National Pet Parents day. So, don’t forget to hug your plumber and get that pet of yours to do something nice for you.
I digress. Earth Day this week got global policy and business circles leaping into action, and obviously it was all about climate change. Plus, COP26 is only a few months away after all. So, what are we up against? Here are the facts, courtesy NASA that we are dealing with:
*There is a more than 95% chance that human activity is leading to rising temperatures.
*CO2 from human activity is increasing more than 250 times faster than it did from natural sources after the last Ice Age.
*The Earth’s average surface temperature has risen about 2.12 degrees Fahrenheit (1.18 degrees Celsius) since the late 19th century.
*The top 100 meters of ocean is showing warming of more than 0.6 degrees Fahrenheit (0.33 degrees Celsius) since 1969.
*Most of the warming has occurred in the past 40 years, with the seven most recent years being the warmest.
*Ice sheets are shrinking. Greenland lost an average of 279 billion tons of ice per year between 1993 and 2019, while Antarctica lost about 148 billion tons per year.
*Global sea level rose 8 inches (20 centimeters) in the last century. In the last two decades, however, the rate is nearly double.
Sounds, and is dire, giving people (especially the young) an ulcer, and companies know it. This week saw a plethora of corporate announcements designed to make customers feel better about their choices. Some included the likes of Unilever’s Hellmans brand moving all its plastic packaging to 100% recycled, by the end of 2022. Mastercard is making all its cards from recycled, ocean or biodegradable plastic, and SC Johnson’s commiting to ensure 100% of its plastic packaging can be reused, recycled, or composted by 2025.
Then it was the turn of the politicians. President Joe Biden’s Climate Leaders Summit coincided with Earth Day. He promised a 50% reduction in U.S. Greenhouse emissions by 2030. And to put climate at the center of U.S. foreign policy. That is quite a U-turn from President Trump’s position!
Tall claims
The two day summit hosted 40 leaders. Here’s a gist of what some of them said. Xi Jinping claimed China was acting on its targets 'in much shorter time span'; Vladimir Putin boasted of the 'greater extent' of Russia's action, Narendra Modi claimed India's carbon footprint is 60% lower than the global average, and Boris Johnson stressed the UK was doing as much as US. Then, inexplicably he proceeded to describe "the politically correct green act of bunny hugging." Yes, I don’t what he was thinking either.
The Thunberg effect
One person who has said she won’t be at COP26 (unless vaccines can be equitably distributed worldwide) wasn’t impressed, and neither were Greta Thunberg’s supporters. Some managed to dump a whole lot of manure on the White House lawns, while others broke windows of HSBC in London. Greta then changed her twitter handle to ‘Bunny Hugger.'
That social media stunt almost overshadowed her powerful video testimony the same day as the Summit, to the U.S. Congress about fossil fuel subsidies. The Chairman of the Oversight Committee’s subcommittee (governments like layers don’t they!) on the environment wants them to end, per Biden’s election campaign promise. Greta supports that cause, and asked the U.S. Congress to use its common sense. She also released a video ahead of the Climate Leaders Summit asking people to not be fooled by the claims of world leaders.
Apt, considering even those nations who’ve sat out the international conversation about the climate, chimed in this week.
Net zero
Buffeted by droughts, and typhoons that failed to replenish its water table, Taiwan’s started work on a plan to get to net zero emissions by 2050. The tech powerhouse’s President Tsai Ing-Wen has taken a lot of heat from activists for not being part of the international efforts to address climate change. While Chinese pressure has kept the island nation excluded from international treaties, Taiwan’s government finally announced it is making plans to address supply and demand side issues in its energy market. Taiwan’s prior target was to halve its emissions between 2005-2050.
We now have to sit back and wait to see if we get a similar a flurry of concern about Mother Earth anytime before November’s COP26. In the meantime, there are 128 holidays to celebrate in May. I’m sure May Day, Cinco de Mayo, Star Wars Day, National No Pants Day among others will offer up plenty for us to talk about, next month!
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Tech stuff
AI ground rules
If European Commission Executive Vice President and Tech Commissioner Margrethe Vestager’s competition policies, and GDPR hadn’t already made her Big Tech’s least favorite European, she definitely is now. This week she set the foundations for the EU to become the standard-bearer of regulating the complicated world of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
The EU’s proposed regulations (which still need to be approved by the European Parliament) address the human and societal risks associated with specific uses of AI, such as a prohibition (in principle) on controversial “remote biometric identification”, like the use of live facial recognition to pick people out of crowds in real time. There will only be an exception for narrowly defined law enforcement purposes such as searching for a missing child, or a wanted person, or preventing a terror attack or threat. The draft regulations also include rules for using AI in risky categories like choosing schools, jobs or loan applicants. It also proposes banning AI outright in cases such as "social scoring" or systems used to manipulate human behavior.
The likes of Google, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft are going to have to figure out the far-reaching implications of the new EU rules. It’s a tough ask considering the massive resources they’ve put toward developing AI. Read Margrethe’s announcement here.
Policy matters
Russia’s rising rates
Russia’s Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina raised the bank’s key rate by 50 basis points to 5% this week. She sees risks to delaying a return to a neutral monetary policy, which could lead to a more significant rate hike in the future. She doesn’t see inflationary risks for Russia from spending from the National Wealth Fund, but sees high inflation expectations continuing, and sees a moderately tight Russian policy environment for the rest of 2021. Read more here.
Wirecarding Merkel
German chancellor Angela Merkel probably wishes she’d never heard of Wirecard, nor lobbied for it. But she stood up for herself this week in front of lawmakers at a parliamentary hearing, saying the firm didn’t get special treatment, nor had she any reason to suspect it was indulging in criminal activity when she lobbied for it in China. Read more here.
Business not as usual
Extraditing Huawei
Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou has been stuck in Canada, fighting extradition to the U.S. for almost two and a half years. She was arrested at Vancouver International Airport on charges of bank fraud in the United States for allegedly misleading HSBC about Huawei's business dealings in Iran, causing the bank to break U.S. sanctions. Her attorney’s requested time to consider documents generated, post a settlement reached by Huawei and HSBC in Hong Kong. While the prosecution objected to moving the hearing which was to wrap up in May, the court granted Meng a three month delay. Read more here.
Caught my eye
It’ll all be ok
India’s descent into Covid hell is also a confused one. BJP party boss Narendra Modi is sking people to stay home, while simultaneously hosting election rallies with thousands of supporters. His party seemingly is offering vaccines for votes. A new mutant strain looks like it will be tough to beat, hospitals are overwhelmed, and there is a severe oxygen shortage in the country, killing patients who could’ve been saved. But India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman (no relation to me!) is asking Indian businesses to wait and watch (for what we don’t know), doesn’t think the second wave will impact the government’s reform agenda, its asset sales, or cause major economic disruption. Read more here.
Japan’s Covid problem
Japan’s has declared its third state of emergency in Tokyo just months before the Olympics. Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga announced the measures on Friday, saying they would begin on Sunday and remain in place until 11 May. In addition to Tokyo, the prefectures of Osaka, Kyoto and Hyogo will be affected. Read more here.
Journalists under fire
Bai Choy was making a documentary about the Yuen Long mob attacks of 2019, one of the most controversial incidents in the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. While conducting research, the RTHK producer looked for information about vehicles at the scene for an episode of her show, Hong Kong Connection. The vehicle in question was used to transport suspected weapons and attackers. The court found her guilty of making false statements to access the information, since ‘reporting’ on public records did not qualify for a public query. The court declared only legal, traffic matters, or vehicle purchase would qualify. Read more here.
Kruger’s got its first female head ranger
Cathy Dreyer has been appointed as the first female head ranger at South Africa’s Kruger National Park. A well known name in South Africa’s conservation circles, she was the first South African, and first female recipient of the Tusk Award for Conservation in Africa. The Tusk Conservation Award honours emerging leaders in conservation in Africa who have made an outstanding contribution in their chosen field. Read more here.
Be a sport
Somersault to a new sponsor
The world’s most decorated gymnast has switched loyalties. Just three months before the Tokyo Olympics Simone Biles has left her long time sponsor Nike, to partner with Gap’s women’s clothing brand Athleta. Simone has since suggested in interviews that her new sponsor’s values align better with her than Nike’s. Nike’s been under fire for some years for the way it treats its female employees and the female athletes it sponsors.
In addition to her own line among other sponsorship agreements, Mary Beth Laughton, Athleta’s president will be also supporting Simone in a post-Olympic ‘Biles’s Gold Over America Tour’. That’s going to give Simone serious financial power over U.S.A gymnastics, that she has gone as far as to call untrustworthy. Read more here.
The artsy stuff
Weaponise glamour
Alice Channer’s first of multiple 2021 solo exhibitions opened at Large Glass in London on April 22nd. Describing her works as a “21st century process art,” she explores bodies as a process that range from machines, to their operators. But at the core of her work, whether monumental in scale and material or elemental, she believes in weaponising glamour. “I see clothes as a kind of armour that can change and mutate.” Catch the London show (runs till June 26th) or Read more here.
Must Watch
NASA TV on YouTube!
And since SpaceX docked safely with the International Space Station yesterday, it’s time for us to get to know SpaceX astronaut Megan McArthur
Have you met
Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, Founder, Associations of Indigenous Women & Peoples of Chad
From the pastoral tribes of the Mbororo people, Hindou has become a leader fighting to defend the rights and environment of the indigenous people of Chad. Chosen to represent civil society during the signing of the Paris Climate Agreement in 2016, Hindou has worked tirelessly to create awareness, and the value of women’s advise amongst village leaders. Hindou was one of the few chosen to speak at President Biden’s Climate Summit this week. Read more about her perspective on how climate change is impacting indigenous tribes here.
Rekha Menon, first female Chairwoman of NASSCOM
If you do business in India, or are even remotely connected to the country’s tech sector, Rekha M. Menon, chairperson and senior managing director at Accenture in India is the one to know.
This week, Rekha also became India’s tech industry body Nasscom’s chairperson for 2021-22. She is the first woman to take on the role in Nasscom’s 30 year history. Her new gig puts her at the apex of decision making for the industry, along NASSCOM President Debjani Ghosh. And she knows all too well the pitfalls and challenges of women in the tech sector. Read more about her journey here.
Tip of the week
Are you recycling right? Or want to figure out how to recycle for the first time?Here are a few tips from Earth Day.
*No plastic bags (at all)
*Don’t recycle anything smaller than a credit card
*Make sure everything is clean, empty and dry
*Don’t combine different materials
*Know your plastics
*Don’t optimistically put non-recyclable objects in recycling bins
*Power yourself up with knowledge. Read, read, and read some more to figure out what your city can, and cannot recycle.