The World's Biggest Polluter Is Cleaning Up Its Act
It's the same situation with the most important destination for the world's LNG carriers, coal ships and oil tankers over the past few decades: China. The biggest consumer of carbon, and the source of a third of annual greenhouse emissions, is finally turning a corner to a cleaner future. China's size is so overwhelming that when its fossil fuel consumption peaks, as it's doing now, it will shift the direction of the whole planet.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
10 minutes ago
- Yahoo
DeepSeek Postpones New AI Model After Huawei Chip Hurdles
Chinese AI startup DeepSeek has hit the brakes on its next big release. The company was gearing up to debut its new large language model, R2, but ran into trouble training it on Huawei chips, the Financial Times reported. It's the latest setback tied to U.S. export controls that keep Nvidia's (NASDAQ:NVDA) most powerful GPUs out of Chinese hands a gap that's proving hard to fill. Sources told The Information in June that the lack of top-tier Nvidia hardware was already weighing on R2's progress, and CEO Liang Wenfeng isn't happy with its current performance. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 5 Warning Signs with NVDA. For now, there's no release date. DeepSeek's most recent upgrade, R1-0528, is still making waves, with the company claiming it performs close to OpenAI's o3 and Google's Gemini 2.5 Pro. But the longer R2 lingers in development, the more pressure mounts in the high-stakes race to push AI models to the cutting edge. This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
17 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Yen Rises Against Bitcoin, Dollar as Scott Bessent Predicts Bank of Japan Rate Hike
The yen (JPY) strengthened against the dollar (USD) and bitcoin (BTC) after U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the Bank of Japan is behind the curve on inflation and will probably have to raise interest rates. 'The Japanese have an inflation problem ... They're behind the curve, so they are going to be hiking, and they need to get their inflation problem under control,' Bessent said during an interview with Bloomberg TV. Bessent's take contrasts with that of BOJ Governor Kazuo Ueda, who has justified moving slowly on rate increases because underlying inflation, which focuses on the strength of domestic demand and wages, remains short of the central bank's 2% target even though the headline rate is above 3%. In July, the bank held its benchmark interest rate steady at 0.5% while providing no clues on future moves. The Trump administration has for months been calling for tighter monetary policy in Japan to halt the yen's depreciation and narrow the rate differential between the two currencies. In a report published in June, the Treasury called for the BOJ to focus on growth, inflation and the normalization of the yen's weakness against the dollar as part of a structural rebalancing of bilateral trade, according to the Financial Times. Bessent's comments strengthened the yen higher across the board. BitFlyer listed BTC/JPY pair fell 1.7% to 17,845,432 yen, posting bigger losses than Coinbase's BTC/USD pair, which dropped to $121,650. The dollar-yen pair (USD/JPY) slipped for the third straight day, hitting a three-week low of 146.21, according to data source TradingView. Risk-off ahead? Traders have historically used the yen as a carry currency to fund purchases of assets in high-yielding economies. That is, they've exploited Japan's low interest rate to borrow yen and buy assets that give a higher return, profiting from the difference. As such, rallies in the yen often trigger fears of risk aversion in financial markets. That may not be the case anymore, according to Marc Chandler, chief market strategist at Bannockburn Global Forex. Risk-off is frequently the result of unwinding of funding trades, e.g. short yen, long Brazilian real (BRL). However, the yen may not be the most attractive funding currency at present. "Not only is Swiss policy rate at zero, but JPY volatility is higher," Chandler told CoinDesk in an email. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
24 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Bessent says BOJ is 'behind the curve' on inflation, likely to hike rates, in Bloomberg interview
By Mariko Katsumura and Leika Kihara TOKYO (Reuters) -The Bank of Japan will likely be raising interest rates as it is behind the curve in dealing with the risk of inflation, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Bloomberg Television, in his most explicit comment on Japan's monetary policy. The remarks contrast with those of BOJ Governor Kazuo Ueda, who has repeatedly brushed aside the view the central bank was being too slow in raising rates and could be late in forestalling too-high inflation. Bessent said U.S. Treasury yields are feeling the impact of overseas developments, with the 30-year yield getting dragged up by rising long-term bond yields in Japan and Germany. "There's definitely leakage from — the Japanese have an inflation problem," Bessent said in the interview with Bloomberg Television on Wednesday. Bessent mentioned that he had spoken with BOJ Governor Kazuo Ueda. "My opinion, not his — they're behind the curve. So they're going to be hiking," he added, though he made no comment on how soon a rate hike could come. The comments by Bessent come as rising food and raw material costs keep Japan's core inflation above the central bank's 2% target for well over three years, causing some BOJ policymakers to worry about second-round price effects. Governor Ueda has signalled readiness to keep raising rates but justified going slow on the view that "underlying inflation," which focuses on domestic demand and wages, remains short of the BOJ's target. The slow pace of the BOJ's policy normalisation has been blamed by some analysts for the yen's persistent weakness, which in turn has pushed up the cost of imports and broader inflation. The BOJ next meets for a rate review in September before holding another one in October, when the board conducts a quarterly review of its growth and inflation forecasts. Bessent, who oversees Washington's trade and exchange-rate talks with Tokyo, has repeatedly signalled his preference for tighter Japanese monetary policy. In its exchange-rate report to Congress in June, the U.S. Treasury Department said the BOJ should keep tightening monetary policy, which would support a "normalization of the yen's weakness." In an interview with the Nikkei newspaper published on Monday, Bessent said the currency "will take care of itself" as long as the BOJ focused on "economic fundamentals, inflation and growth." The BOJ last year exited a decade-long, massive stimulus programme and raised short-term interest rates to 0.5% in January on the view Japan was close to durably hitting its 2% inflation target. At its policy meeting in July, the BOJ kept rates steady but revised up its inflation forecasts and offered a less gloomy outlook on the economy, keeping alive market expectations for a rate hike this year. "I don't think we're behind the curve, or that the risk of us being behind the curve is large," Ueda told a news briefing after the July policy meeting. The governor said that while wages and service-sector inflation were rising, the pace of gains weren't alarming. A Reuters poll last month showed a majority of economists expect another rate hike by year-end. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
