Time for changes: as one humanity for a sustainable, cooperative & innovative future

The night before the China International Import Expo opening, the most important economic cooperation event of the year for a new China’s growth narrative, the 6th edition and the first after COVID restrictions were lifted, my alma mater Princeton University ’s Alumni Association of Shanghai organized a private and intimate dinner with our esteemed fellow alumni, Mr. Siddharth Chatterjee, United Nations Resident Coordinator for China.

Inspired by Mr. Chatterjee’s mission at the UN incorporated purposefully with Princeton’s unofficial motto: "In Service to Humanity", and stimulating speech opening up the dinner, I gathered some of my thoughts as a proud fellow WWS alum in public policy and a seasoned consulting executive-turned entrepreneur committed to enabling sustainable changes with tech innovation in China for the world.

Out of unimaginable COVID-19 pandemic years, we live in a turbulent time under such an uncertain age.  Each one of us—individuals or corporations are more or less disoriented about the future.  "What is happening in the world" is the generic question that I hear almost in every conversation I have with my clients, my friends, or even myself whenever there’s a breaking news alert pops up on my phone.  Although the omnipresence of today’s viral media doesn’t help to reduce any level of anxiety, the world we live in today is indeed arriving at a critical turning point.  The multitude of world crises is mounting, and the impacts are significant on the different aspects of our lives.

I summarized 4 major world crises that we, humans need to build better narratives:

1-Geopolitical & humanitarian crisis: a global threat to world peace

World prosperity benefited greatly from the post-war peacebuilding led by the United Nations.  Our 8 billion humanity is now at risk of entering a period of WWIII, that we all worry about.  Given all the deadly weapon technologies from nuclear to biological, we now possess, no one on this planet is truly safe.

According to 2022 studies of the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP), 55 state-based conflicts were recorded in 38 countries, and 8 of these conflicts were classified as wars.  This number will continue to add in 2023.  Not mentioning the situation of Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Levant started nearly a month ago only continues to be severe, and which has knifed the world civilizations with a breeding deep scarf.

On the other hand, the Russian-Ukrainian armed conflict has tremendous impact beyond the borders of these two countries, and provoked a ripple of events with implications at the global level, especially in energy and food, particularly for countries in development, that are more vulnerable, and which can easily turn into humanitarian crisis.

The principal role of the United Nations is peace-building across the planet.  Only on this basis, the world economy can prosper, and build capacities to reach the sustainable development goals guided by the different agencies of the UN.  Political stability, peace, and security are essential in humanitarian issues for any country and territory.  People living in countries and territories in armed conflicts will certainly immigrate for better lives such as Near-Orient & African people risk their lives on a boat on the Mediterranean Sea to the EU countries, and Central Americans up north to cross the US.  Additionally, there are significant youth populations in these countries and territories.  Their worldviews will certainly redefine the future of the world we live in.

How we change for a better global cooperation, and use effectively the platform and mechanism the UN has provided to the world?

2-Geoeconomic & technological crisis: from decoupling to derisking

Geoeconomics, or the application of power politics by economic means is a new terminology trending in the global risk assessment emerging in recent years.   There is a growing concern about the security risks posed by economic interdependence in terms of sovereignty and economic resilience. This convergence of economic and security thinking is placing added pressure on the norms and rules that have governed the global economy for decades.

The US-China decoupling surfaced right before the COVID pandemic that hit us heavily because the rapid rise of the Chinese economy at a scale of 1.4 billion people made its major Western trading partners concerned.  The travel restrictions over the past years, and extremism polarization in politics did not help at all to set us on a good term to be pragmatic on the economic cooperation.

The US-China decoupling is a geoeconomic showdown in actions with active economic intervention by applying sanctions, export controls, and subsidies while developing investment screening mechanisms and data-localization measures.  Technologies are becoming critical assets at risk for all parties to view global trade only with competitive lenses.   

The result of the decoupling didn’t and will certainly not favor anyone.  As a formally trained international political economist, I firmly believe the advantage of a multi-lateral trade cooperation for the global trade which sadly didn’t progress much post-Doha round in the early 2000.  China’s accession to the WTO benefited not just the Chinese economy, and also the world.  However, the world trade system along with global supply chains does indeed need an uplift given the options provided by digital technologies.   Meanwhile, we need more global cooperation and mechanisms to govern new technologies such as AI and Biochemical, and innovate together like the ITER project on experimenting with fusion energy — thirty-five nations are collaborating to build and operate the ITER Tokamak.  So humanity can progress towards becoming a Type 1 civilization.

How do we change to build better global economic cooperation, and invest to advance technological innovations?

3-Health crisis: more partnerships to build across world public health systems

I believe the images that WHO leaders evoked in global cooperation over the past years are still vivid for many of us from mobilizing global pandemic prevention to coordinating vaccines.  This showed how fragile and unequal our public health systems are across the globe.  As one humanity, no one is immune from our common enemy, the VIRUS.

The world’s public health systems across the globe have different demographies, resources, and infrastructures.  But for a resilient healthcare system, all countries need more public-private partnerships to fight whatever health issues in priority.

In most developing economies, the accessibility to medicines and treatment is generally the key issue.  Many of these economies still confront the challenges of high maternal and perinatal mortality rates.  Not only the government needs to implement an effective and actionable policy, but also private sectors from pharmaceutical, and healthcare companies to communications and solutions providers can be mobilized for the same cause and impact works.  Implementation of the free maternity service policy in Kenya over the past decade has made a significant improvement.

Meanwhile, as our life expectancy continues to continue, good health and well-being issues in developed and emerging economies manifest from chronic diseases like diabetes to the prevention and treatment of substance abuse, including narcotic drug abuse and harmful use of alcohol.  Resilient multi-stakeholder management in a complex public-private partnership structure is much needed, where the tech sector has a strong role to play.

How do we change for a global partnership mechanism to build a resilient health system for the world population when we need one?

4-Climate crisis: an existential threat for Anthropocene civilization

Climate change is an existential threat not to humanity but to our project of civilization.  Anthropogenic global warming, interacting with environmental and social determinants, constitutes a profound health risk.  Since the Industrial Revolution, economic activities have been releasing increasing amounts of greenhouse gases far greater than the amount that can be captured by the natural carbon cycle.  Therefore, we agree to take urgent action across the globe to combat climate change and its impacts by regulating emissions and promoting developments in renewable energy.

Many climate change impacts are already felt at the current 1.2 °C level of warming. Additional warming will increase these impacts and can trigger tipping points, such as the melting of the Greenland ice sheet or breaking off of the Antarctica Ice Shelf.  The 2015 Paris Agreement set an ambition to limit global warming to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5°C - in part by pursuing net carbon neutrality by 2050 at the most developed economies.  China is the first developing economy to set a carbon-neutral goal by 2060. The substantial reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions, including Carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), and 4 other man-made F-gases will limit the increase of global temperature.

In practice, getting to zero net emissions requires shifting from fossil fuels to an alternative low-carbon economy.  Decarbonization can be achieved by decreasing the amount of CO2 emitted across industries and will require a fundamentally different energy system, by using alternative energy sources based on green electricity and green molecules (such as biofuels and hydrogen).  Additionally, Nature-based solutions could provide up to 30% of our climate solutions through protecting, managing, and restoring forests, wetlands, grasslands, and croplands. 

Meanwhile, industries and financial institutions are all mobilized to set net-zero goals with global baseline and national regulations in place after COP26 in Glasgow.  As argued by the World Bank, we need continuously to invest the equivalent of 2% of the global Gross Domestic Product to mitigate the impact of climate change as is one of the greatest threats to economic stability.   We also need climate finance through multilateral funds, market-based and concessional loans from financial institutions, sovereign green bonds issued by national governments, and resources mobilized through carbon trading and carbon taxes.  At COP28 in Dubai, the focus will be on how developed countries can support developing countries to take climate action, both to adapt to climate change and cut emissions. 

How do we change to mobilize for climate actions to mitigate, transition, and adapt for a greener planet Earth?

Time for changes

To answer these questions, we need alternatives to rewrite our storyline-correcting paths to build a sustainable, cooperative, and innovative tomorrow.

Multilateralism

First, neoliberal economic policies that have influenced the mainstream growth model since the late 20th century will need a refresh.  Evoking the infamous Princeton political economist Prof. Robert Keohane's 1984 book After Hegemony concepts on the new institutional economics which argues that the international system could remain stable in the absence of a hegemon, thus rebutting hegemonic stability theory.

As is today, the emergence of a new superpower — China will continue to grow, but in its way with a market-based socialist economic structure, whilst the Western economies will prevail with inclusive capitalism initiatives for socio-economic equality, inclusion, and diversity.  On a planet with diverse civilizations, cultures, and religions, economic growth models shall also be distinct.  One model fits all won’t and will never work perfectly as the beauty of nature holds in diversity.

The United Nations, the multilateral framework par excellence.  At the international stage, we need a multilateral operation determined by collectively developed rules that ensure sustainable and effective cooperation, whilst progressing towards establishing a global governance mechanism.

China for the world

Second, China while experiencing restructured changes, offers the world, mostly amongst developing countries an alternative solution.  The Belt and Road Initiative showcases the country’s ambitions to lead in the world and provides not only financing options but also a growth model as economic development for security and prosperity.

CIIE in Shanghai is a signal to the world that the Chinese market stays always open and is becoming an international hub for technological innovations.  Given the 1.4 billion consumer market, which is becoming more affluent, sophisticated, and digital, it allows global businesses greater growth prospects than ever and anywhere in the world.

The duality between the US and China like the developed v.s. the developing before we could align for a suitable global governance mechanism for our 8 billion world population, still growing mostly in developing markets — Africa, Asia, and Latin America.  A reasonable level of competition won’t hurt, but will otherwise benefit the world in technological innovation and advancement.

Technologies for Humanity

Finally, technology is a major factor in the world economic development for global cooperation, innovation, and governance, so we can embrace a tech-enabled and sustainable future.  I opted out of three below key elements:

1. AI governance:

Over the past months, AI development has in the center of global conversation.  We are experiencing a new wave of AGI or AIGC-led transformation of our industry, society, and life.  The idea of rogue AGI skilling off or replacing 8 billion people worries many of us on this planet.

However, "having more intelligence available to humanity — including both human intelligence and artificial intelligence — arms us better to tackle many problems," said Andrew Ng.  After all the use of AI technologies by our humans is more pivotal.  The world needs an ex-ante measure to establish a global AI governance rather than AI regulations, so we ensure the responsible development of AI technologies for usages to address real-world challenges with a focus on equitable collaboration, practical applications, and ethical considerations.

Because "openness, transparency, and broad access makes software platforms safer and more secure" said Yann LeCun in an open letter from Mozilla Foundation. Finally, AI governance allows us the ability to direct, manage, and monitor the AI activities of any organization.  Thus, global cooperation is a must.

We happily witnessed the announcement of the Bletchley Declaration, a collaborative outcome by all countries that attended the AI Safety Summit between 1-2 November 2023 at the British home of the WWII codebreaker, Alan Turing.

1. Bio Revolution

Another important technological innovation transforming our economies, societies, and our lives finds itself in the advances in biological science from health and agriculture to consumer goods, and energy and materials.  The current innovation wave in biology has been propelled by a confluence of breakthroughs in science itself, together with advances in computing, data analytics, machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), and biological engineering that are enabling and accelerating the change.

The Bio revolution has been decades in the making. The $3 billion, 13-year effort to map the human genome that began in 1990 is a foundational building block, but the power of this map only began to materialize when it became cheaper and faster to sequence DNA. The cost of DNA sequencing has been decreasing at a rate faster than Moore’s Law.  Advances in lower-cost and high-throughput screening have helped lower the costs of entry, accelerate the pace of experimentation, and generate new forms of data—to help us better understand biology which is paramount to humanity.

Identified by McKinsey in its 2020 study, bio innovations are grouped into four arenas: (1) biomolecules—the mapping, measuring, and engineering of molecules; (2) biosystems—the engineering of cells, tissues, and organs; (3) biomachines—the interface between biology and machines; and (4) biocomputing—the use of cells or molecules such as DNA for computation.

Indisputably, mRNA-based COVID vaccine development is an exemplary work of this bio revolution in research and development, for the bio revolution to drive tangible impact in our economies, societies, and our lives, we need a global, inclusive, and accountable public-private partnership along with awareness, trust and transparency building towards the technologies.

1. Climate tech

According to McKinsey’s 2020 study on the net-zero transition, the transformation of the global economy needed to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 would be universal and significant, requiring $9.2 trillion in annual average spending on physical assets, $3.5 trillion more than today.  Since addressing climate change requires decarbonization and sustainability transformation across all sectors—Energy, Industry, Transportation, Buildings, and Agriculture, climate tech provides technologies and services that enable decarbonization companies of the global economy, and those companies can span a wide variety of end markets and business models.

According to the findings of a recent PwC research, the global rate of decarbonization remains far too slow, and the world needs to decarbonize seven times as fast as the current rate to limit warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial averages.  Climate tech will play a critical role in bending the decarbonization arc, but in the International Energy Agency (IEA)’s net-zero scenario, just over one-third of the emissions reductions occurring in 2050 depend on technologies that are currently only in development.

We will need more investments in climate tech companies developing products and services that leverage these technologies to mitigate and adapt to climate change, by removing existing carbon from the atmosphere, reducing future emissions, or increasing our resilience against the impacts of a changing climate.  Currently, climate tech’s share of private market equity and grant investment rose to 11.4% in Q3 2023 and is tracking at an annual rate of 10% for the year to date, extending a decade-long upward trajectory.  Overall, 2023 will see US$1.7 trillion go towards deploying renewables, grids, and other clean-energy technologies—a new record high following six consecutive years of increases.

Finally, climate tech is not only about clean tech like wind and solar panels, AI-enabled and bio-based tech solutions will be advantageously effective in supporting humanity in solving climate challenges.

In summary, we humans are competitive in nature, however, we must think about win-win for harmonious growth and development in our global village.  Unlike the 90s that I grew up in, the "Global Village" concept is rarely mentioned these days.  Paradoxically, world civilizations have become so isolated on our own when so many digital technologies are made available in our economy, society, and everyday life to connect us so easily, more than ever with each other.  Hopefully, we verge and build towards a sustainable, cooperative, and innovative future for our anthropogenic history on the planet Earth.

Sometimes it requires only an inner journey to find the answers, purpose, and peace.  Like Mr. Chatterjee, I’d also lost nearly 25 kilos over the COVID pandemic with practices of healthy lifestyle focusing from gut health to mindfulness.  It was about my physical & and spiritual resilience in what I eat, how I live my day, and why I react to certain things.  Finally, given the unpredictably volatile world that we live in, the best we can do is learn how to breathe in and out.  This is the fundamental difference we — Humans have against AI.

At the end of our dinner with Mr. Chatterjee, he taught the crowd the Wim Hof Method (WHM), a breathing exercise he’s been practicing, which enlightened many of us in the room.  In time for changes, isn’t it a great idea to take some time to inhale and exhale a hold of deep breath before making any decisions?