Energy

Growth prospects have weakened throughout the world economy. Global growth for 2016 is projected at 2.4 percent, unchanged from the disappointing pace of 2015, and 0.5 percentage point below the January forecast. Emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) are facing stronger headwinds, including weaker growth among advanced economies and persistently low commodity prices, as well as lackluster global trade and capital flows. Divergences between commodity exporters and importers persist. Conditions remain markedly challenging for commodity exporters, which continue to struggle to adjust to the new era of depressed prices. In contrast, commodity importers are showing greater resilience to headwinds, although the expected growth windfall from low energy prices has been surprisingly modest. Global growth is projected to pick up slowly to 3.0 percent by 2018, as stabilizing commodity prices provide support to commodity exporting EMDEs. Downside risks have become more pronounced. These include deteriorating conditions among key commodity exporters, softer-thanexpected activity in advanced economies, rising private sector debt in some large emerging markets, and heightened policy and geopolitical uncertainties. While policy space for monetary and fiscal stimulus is narrow, structural reforms could boost growth both in the short and the long term.

Today’s global challenges are developing faster than ever as the world grows more interdependent. Advanced technologies are empowering individuals and organizations in new and unpredictable ways, creating new partnerships but also enabling the rise of new adversaries. A wide array of actors – from non-state groups to rogue states to revisionist powers – are testing these new tools. In parallel, the international system built in the second half of the 20th century is being challenged by emerging regional and global powers, while environmental and other transnational issues have become a determining factor in geopolitics. The resulting complexity and growing number of challenges have made the global security environment more difficult to navigate. It is in this context that the transatlantic relationship is evolving.

The report highlights the emerging technologies and business models that are changing the way urban services are delivered and proposes a 10-step action plan to enable cities to navigate the journey of urban transformation.
Cities are growing at a rapid rate, with the global urban population set to increase by 2.5 billion by 2050. People continue to migrate to cities for better economic, social and creative opportunities. Growing cities are dense in terms of land use and, at the same time, are difficult to govern because of their diverse social and economic fabric.
While cities battle issues such as climate change, social segregation and economic development, they increasingly have to do so with fewer resources as they face budgetary constraints and battle with suboptimal devolution of funds and functions. City administrations are using emerging
business models and technologies to deliver services. The use of technology and changing ownership models have disrupted the way excess capacities within cities are efficiently utilized. However, technology is not a silver-bullet solution to urban problems. To holistically address such problems cities need to transform planning, governance and regulatory aspects.

In the coming years, prosperity in Germany will have to be generated through technology and knowledge to an increasing degree. Technological progress will become the sole driver of growth in the long run as growth contributed by labour and capital declines in the face of demographic change.
Germany must now chart the course for this transformation.

Radical technological change will slash marginal costs, opening up completely new business models. This will change value added in key sectors including mobility, healthcare and energy, and increase integration with services.

Germany must take more concerted action than it has so far to set the course for industrial policy going forward. Although Germany still boasts a range of outstanding benefits as a business location, it must tackle weak points in the start-up environment, venture capital, public investment and regulatory parameters for key technologies.

The strategic priorities of German industrial policy must continue to be the deepening of the European single market and the international trade and investment regime. Bilateral and multilateral trade policy has moved into rougher waters while the untapped potential right here in the European Union
is wholly underestimated.

In the digital world too, a good balance must be found between productivity and social cohesion. While this vision is still forming on the horizon, the political course taken now will determine whether it will turn into a positive or a plaintive reality.

The national energy system of the United States is aging and has to be renewed in a dynamic fashion to adapt to the transformative changes in the world of energy. Failure to do so will result in substantial economic disadvantage and national security vulnerabilities, and risk the United States’ position as the leading global power in the twenty-first century. The need for modernization represents a unique opportunity to upgrade the United States to a cutting edge system of energy hardware and software. Moreover, climate change is a severe threat to the United States and an existential one to much of the rest of humanity. Climate change represents an ever growing, direct risk to the American people as extreme weather events wreak havoc, rising sea levels engulf coastal cities, and natural beauties and wildlife habitats degrade.

The security situation facing the Middle East is grave and appears to be trending toward greater violence and instability. The Middle East Strategy Task Force's Security and Public Order report, published in cooperation with the Brookings Institution, demonstrates that states of the region have tended to focus on traditional, external threats but the internal threats they face—from domestic unrest, state failure, and civil war—have become both more common and dangerous.

It is highly unlikely that these security problems will solve themselves or that regional states will be able to resolve them on their own. Given the ongoing importance of Middle Eastern energy resources to the international economy, the region’s central geographic location, its multiplicity of terrorist groups, and the extent of regional anger at numerous other countries for their predicament, it would be a mistake to assume that these security problems will not affect the wider world. Already the problems of terrorism and refugees generated by Middle Eastern upheaval have made many Americans, Europeans, Russians, and Middle Easterners want to take action themselves.

this report described in the press release as "an annual digest on critical questions and important trends in the field of international security policy." The first section of the report focuses on the roles of international actors, Germany, United States, Europe, NATO, Russia, and emerging powers. The second section discusses three "hot spots"-- Ukraine, the Middle East, and Asia Pacific. The third section reviews major issues such as terrorism, energy security, and refugee crises, and the fourth section suggests additional reading and research materials.

Electricity markets in fast-growing economies face different challenges than those in more mature markets. Mature markets with stable demand for electricity are transitioning to a more sustainable mix of power generation technologies while continuing to support economic growth with affordable and secure power. Fast-growing markets are trying to serve voracious new demand for electricity as their economies grow, as more customers are connected to the grid and as per capita consumption grows.

This report recognizes the need for policy to balance the objectives in the Forum’s energy architecture triangle: security and accessibility, short- and medium-term affordability, and environmental sustainability. The fact that 1.2 billion people lacked access to electricity in 2012, combined with the scale of poverty, will inevitably focus attention on accessibility and affordability. But even as they make progress on achieving reliable universal access, fast-growing markets will need to develop roadmaps that take advantage of new technologies to make their power affordable while increasing environmental sustainability.

The report describes the concept of the circular economy and outlines its key characteristics. It draws attention to both the benefits and challenges in transitioning to such an economy and highlights possible ways to measure progress.

Europe is bound to the rest of the world through multiple systems that enable two-way flows of materials, financial resources, ideas and innovation. As a result, Europe's economic, ecological and societal resilience is and will continue to be significantly affected by a variety of global and interdependent social, economic, political, environmental and technological trends.

Global material resource use in 2030, for example, is expected to be twice that of 2010 (SERI, 2013), while the most recent United Nations forecast suggests that the global population is likely to exceed 11 billion by the end of the 21st century (UN DESA, 2015). With 7.2 billion people today, however, the planet is already struggling to meet humanity's demands for land, food and other natural resources, and to absorb its wastes. Indeed, there is evidence that some planetary boundaries, which define a safe operating space for human development, may already have been transgressed. These include the biosphere's integrity, nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, climate change and land system changes