Germany’s Slow Car Crash. Deathbed Confessions of a Climate Negotiator. And where Hooligans, Drugs and Politics Mix! Plus more! #164
Grüezi! I’m Adrian Monck, and welcome to this newsletter featuring seven things that caught my attention this week.
Also in this edition – elderly footballers, microbes that munch carbon and saving Private Hedgehog.
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1️⃣ Germany’s Slow Car Crash
EVs are leaving its auto industry and economy in the dust.
Julius Probst has a great take on why German industry is in decline.
TL;DR? The fault is in our cars.
German car makers have not been able to make a big push in the electric vehicle space compared to players like Tesla and Asian car manufacturers.
The typical car model has a lifecycle of about 10 years – the EU 2035 ban on combustion engines is not that far out.
Global car production peaked in 2018 and is now 10% lower than a few years ago.
New combustion engine vehicle sales peaked in 2017 and are now down 20%.
The FT followed up with a gloomy tale of VW’s woes in China.
The German car industry was built on the idea that people like driving. It turns out in markets like China they just want to get around and software beats shiny exhaust pipes.
The story’s conclusion hammers home the point:
Fast-growing Chinese companies such as Li Auto, Xpeng and Nio are pushing their mass-market cars ever closer to autonomous driving functionality.
A former exec said VW had been too “slow to grasp” how tech-focused Chinese consumers had become… ‘It is like comparing iPhones with Nokias 10 years ago.’
If the electric vehicle is bad for Germany, it’s great for China, as economist Adam Wolfe points out:
China’s industrial policies for electric vehicles are paying off. Domestic consumers are shifting to domestic cars, so imports are falling. And Chinese companies are globally competitive, so exports are booming (some of which is Tesla).
Germany’s petrolheads need to get reinventing.
⏭ If you wonder what the electric vehicle future looks like, go to Norway.
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2️⃣ Climate Confessions
A dying COP negotiator tells all.
The UK’s Pete Betts is one of the ‘faceless bureaucrats’ who steers big international negotiations.
Except he’s not faceless.
And in his final months confronting a terminal illness he is putting together some reflections on a life spent trying to stop global warming.
Betts has three modest observations:
We all go too easy on our own countries;
Climate campaigners go too easy on China;
Personal commitment and relationships matter among political leaders.
The whole interview is worth your time, as doubtless Betts’ book will be, but one of my favourite Yes Minister moments is Betts replying to a UK climate minister:
‘[Pete – ] why are you always going on to me about process? Tell me about substance.’
‘Minister, in this process, process is substance.’
A life spent in this kind of work is public service, and – in today’s world – civil services need more people with his quiet persistence and dedication.
⏭ The next COP – number 28 – is in Dubai at the end of the year.
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3️⃣ Meet Serbia – Europe’s Next Member!
Where politics, soccer hooligans and drug smuggling meet.
Aleksandar Vučić came of age amid football stadium hooliganism and organised crime, and earned his political spurs as a media-bashing ‘information minister’ under Slobodan Milošević.
Today he is Serbia’s president and has reinvented himself and his Switzerland-sized, landlocked country. It could join the EU as early as 2025.
All that is behind him.
Or is it?
This week’s NYT has a long report on a Europe-wide drugs investigation that has cast worrying light on the close connections between murderous soccer gangs, cocaine cartels and Serbia’s government.
How bad was gang violence? In case your vision of Serbian soccer hooliganism is recreational rioting, its integration with organised crime makes it deadly.
After one gruesome ‘football’ murder a victim’s picture was shared with the caption “Mexico in the middle of Belgrade.”
So why is Vučić’s regime cosied up to by European politicians rather than condemned?
Vučić holds sway over Serbs in neighbouring Kosovo.
Kosovo is a political hand grenade for Europe and Vučić knows just how far to twist the pin.
Its war to break free from Serbia in the late 1990s resulted in Vučić’s former boss Milošević ending up being tried for crimes against humanity.
Milošević went from nationalist opportunist to warmonger. Let’s hope Vučić has at least learned from watching history.
⏭ From 2018: How Aleksandar Vučić became Europe’s favourite autocrat.
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4️⃣ The Battle AI Might Not be Able to Win
Copyright regulation could defeat SkyNet.
Big AI models train on the open internet. This week a memo ‘leaked’ from a Google engineer with a thinly veiled appeal to open source their own AI development.
Lots of interesting points in it, but I wasn’t expecting this one:
The one clear winner in all of this is Meta. Because the leaked model was theirs, they have effectively garnered an entire planet's worth of free labor. Since most open source innovation is happening on top of their architecture, there is nothing stopping them from directly incorporating it into their products.
⏭ More here on computer vs copyright.
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5️⃣ Carbon-Munching Microbes
A sea-floor discovery with climate potential.
⏭ Sustainable aviation fuel may be on the way too.
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6️⃣ FC Octogenarian
The Japanese football league for the super-annuated.
⏭ The science says sport is good for us as we get older.
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7️⃣ Saving Private Hedgehog
In the midst of a war – there’s still time for small kindnesses.
In the midst of reporting a war, the story of how a kind-hearted Bosnian-French journalist saved a hedgehog:
“Sooo.. here is an unusually cute story from our day of reporting around #Bakhmut ! We found a baby hedgehog that was dehydrated and dying at the worst place possible in Chassiv Yar ...
... We decided to take him with us to base. Located 10 km from Bakhmut, Chassiv Yar is proper hell these days. We found an ammunition old box...recreated some sort of grass environment and took him at the back of our car...
Now the question was how to give him water, no feeding bottle at the horizon but multiple first aid kits and medical equipment so we improvised some sort of feeding bottle! And it ... WORKED! I AM OFFICIALLY A DAD!
For the most curious, ‘Lucky the 🦔’ is feeeeeling much better now! he’s already left his little bed and is going round sniffing for food and trying to hide wherever he sees an opening ! #Ukraine #hedgehogtale
AND MOST IMPORTANTLY finding food by himself. He might be missing his right eye but the guy has a good nose ! We’ll leave him there.. keep an eye for him, but this does seem like a goodbye now... Goodbye and good luck, Lucky ! 🥺Thanks for being a good pal🦔🦔🦔 THE END 💕💕💕”
The kind-hearted journalist was AFP’s Arman Soldin.
Arman was killed this week reporting from the frontline where he rescued Lucky just a few days earlier. He was 32.
⏭ Weekend reading on Bea’s book club podcast.
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If you like this newsletter – please recommend it!
Best,
Adrian
