The Fennel Newsletter
Have you noticed anything different about Fennel?
No, we didn’t hire Sam Altman as our CEO, and we didn’t change our company name to “Y” or “Z” (looking @ you, Twitter). Instead, we put out a ~ shiny new update ~ for the Fennel app.
With the update comes a handful of performance upgrades, with some functional and aesthetic updates too. One of my favorites — an all new price chart.
Check it out:
Even if you’re not as excited by data visualization as I am, let this be a friendly reminder to keep your Fennel app updated when you can so as not to miss out on any of our new features!
What We’re Talking About
World agrees to climate deal that makes unprecedented call to move away from fossil fuels, but ‘cavernous’ loopholes remain (CNN)
What happened: Every year, the UN holds an international climate change summit known as the Conference of Parties of the UNFCCC, or COP. This year’s COP, COP28, was supposed to be a big one as environmental activists and participating nations were expected to finally make plans to ditch fossil fuels.
So did that happen? Well… yes and no.
Near the end of the two week event, the organizers of the event put out a draft text of the COP28 climate deal, and it was instantly met with anger by environmental activists. This draft text included no mention of the fossil fuel “phaseout” that activists were hoping for. Instead, it included softer language, suggesting multiple options that nations “could” take to curb their emissions.
This led to last minute debates and negotiations that caused COP28 to extend a day past its December 12 deadline. On December 13, the conference released a final climate deal agreement, which was slightly more ambitious, but left the door open for nations to reduce their emissions in ways other than reducing fossil fuel consumption.
However, the deal was also the first time a COP agreement included any language about fossil fuels.
Why we care: Climate change is a global problem that will require global cooperation. But the chances of everybody agreeing on a solution and singing “kumbaya” around a campfire are slim.
The messy events of COP28 is likely a preview of how competing interests will butt heads whenever different nations come together to address climate change. There are the industrialized nations that contribute the most to climate change, the rich progressive nations who can afford to take action, the developing nations with low emissions that are still expected to change behaviors, and small nations that will (literally) be underwater if climate change continues getting worse.
And the elephant in the room will always be the fossil fuel industry, which is deeply entrenched in conversations about climate change. For example, the COP28 president Sultan al-Jaber is also the chief executive of the United Arab Emirates’ state oil company, Adnoc, which critics see as a big conflict of interest.
Experts have come to the consensus that fossil fuels are the leading cause of climate change. But it’s hard to imagine that any global conversation about “phasing out” or “phasing down” fossil fuel usage will be had without input from the fossil fuel industry.
So for people (or investors) trying to predict what’s next for the global energy transition, keep in mind that things might take longer than expected — just like they did with the COP28 conference.
A Noteworthy Number
199,000
Although certain things about the economy may feel not-so-great to the average person, the American economy continues to chug along despite the recession fears.
According to the Labor Department, nonfarm payrolls rose by 199,000 (seasonally adjusted), beating expectations of 190,000. This, coupled with the fact that the unemployment rate dropped to 3.7%, shows that the economy is actually holding strong despite the aggressive Fed rate hikes to slow inflation.
And speaking of Fed rate hikes… it looks like the Fed may start cutting rates as soon as 2024. This seems to signal that the Fed is feeling confident in its battle against inflation — something that investors (and anyone hoping to take out a mortgage soon) have been waiting for.
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