This week we unpack two very different challenges facing global leaders: the climate crisis and domestic violence. First, U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry joins host Stephanie Flanders to share why he thinks the Glasgow Climate Pact is more than just words on paper. Among other achievements, Kerry notes that countries representing most of the world’s gross domestic product agreed to cut methane emissions by 30% this decade. Such cuts to this dangerous greenhouse gas (if they actually happen) would be a worthy accomplishment, even if rich nations have yet to fulfill a pledge to steer $100 billion a year to poorer nations facing the brunt of climate change.As countries try to cut carbon, whether by a tax on emissions or other measures, leaders can limit the effects on inflation by adopting the measures sooner rather than later—when more drastic measures may be needed, Bloomberg’s senior Euro-area economist Maeva Cousin says.Finally, Frankfurt-based economics reporter Carolynn Look shares the harrowing story of a German woman who escaped a violent partner and how some European companies are stepping forward to fight domestic abuse. They have a financial imperative as well as a moral one: gender-based violence is estimated by the European Institute for Gender Equality to cost the European Union economy 366 billion euros ($409 billion) a year.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As if rising sea levels and fiercer cyclones weren't enough to worry about, the climate crisis is already cutting crop yields and could lead to widespread food shortages. That's the grave warning from the United Nations, which cautions that farmers won't meet a projected 50% increase in food demand by 2050 if greenhouse gas emissions stay high. In a special episode, Stephanie Flanders tackles how to feed almost 10 billion people, the projected population of the planet in three decades. She turned to four leaders in global agriculture at Bloomberg's New Economy Forum in Singapore for their insight. Technology will play a starring role, says Werner Baumann, chairman of German healthcare and agricultural giant Bayer AG. One Bayer project involves developing "short-stature" corn that resists stalk breakage and can be planted more densely. Cargill Inc. Chairman David MacLennan insists genetically modified organisms must be part of the solution, though GMOs are a controversial component of modern agriculture with significant opposition.Finally, the panelists had some ideas regarding a tweet from the world's richest man, who last month offered to put up $6 billion if a UN official could prove the money would solve world hunger. Sara Menker, chief executive of agricultural analytics firm Gro Intelligence, suggests Elon Musk's money would be best spent creating a new financial institution to help modernize how many crops are traded. More fundamentally, Musk's money could build roads and crop storage facilities so farmers in developing nations could more easily get their products to market, says Alloysius Attah of Farmerline, which helps farmers embrace technology.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One by one, countries that sought to stamp out Covid-19's spread with aggressive lockdowns are giving up zero-tolerance policies and learning to live with the virus. The most notable exception is China, which has decided to cling to the strategy. This week, the new attitude among many nations toward the coronavirus is getting a major test in Singapore, host of Bloomberg's New Economy Forum. The city-state recently experienced its biggest flare-up of the pandemic. In a special episode, Stephanie Flanders discusses Singapore's determination to move forward with the annual meeting of political, business and academic leaders with NEF editorial director Andrew Browne. In many ways, Singapore is intent on signaling it's open for business and that "remaining in lockdown just wasn't an option,'' Browne says. It's a gamble that others in the region are now taking, including New Zealand, which had been widely praised for containing the virus via severe restrictions on daily life, but hasn't been able to shake a steady infection rate.For now, China is bucking the shift away from zero-tolerance. It's still willing to shut down at the slightest hint of an outbreak. However, the approach is coming at great cost to its economy, Bloomberg chief economist Tom Orlik tells Flanders. With China also facing threats from energy shortages and distress in its giant real estate industry, the country's traditional 6% or 7% annual growth could be halved in 2022, Orlik warns.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Robots may replace us eventually, but for now Covid-19 has revealed just how desperate businesses are for workers of the human variety, and the broader economic consequences of that desperation. Companies are raising wages to attract talent, which in turn is helping boost inflation. It hit 6.2% in the U.S. last month and is running at 8.1% in Russia.This week, Bloomberg reporters on two continents share how and why workers are slow to return to the office, factory and field. First, New York-based economics reporter Jill Shah explains the mystery behind the U.S. labor market, which at once has millions of unemployed and as many as 11 million openings. A few of the reasons? Some are waiting to land a remote job, others can't find childcare--and at least a few are trying to make a living trading cryptocurrency. Meantime, Moscow-based reporter Áine Quinn finds Russia's labor shortage is more easily explained. Many migrant workers from Central Asia left during the pandemic and didn't return, while the nation's high infection and death rates has many Russians staying home. Finally, Stephanie Flanders discusses the labor shortage's lasting effects with Jason Furman, a professor of the practice of economic policy at Harvard University. History tells us that many long-term unemployed will see their skills erode, leaving them at a competitive disadvantage, Furman says. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As if controlling spiraling inflation wasn’t enough to worry about, the world’s central bankers are under increasing pressure to help solve climate change, income inequality and myriad other societal ills. What’s more, elected officials in some nations are trying to exert more power over bankers for political ends.Stephanie Flanders debates the proper role of a central banker with three esteemed women economists, Isabel Schnabel of the European Central Bank, Carmen Reinhart of the World Bank and Minouche Shafik of the London School of Economics and Political Science. While bankers can’t be the “white knight” who rushes in to save the world from global warming or income inequality, they can use their bully pulpit to prod slow-moving politicians to act, Shafik says. Schnabel goes a step further, arguing that tough talk alone won’t suffice, and that central bankers should use what economic levers they have available to advance important causes.Of the three economists, Reinhart raised the most concern about inflation, currently running at an annual rate of 5.4% in the U.S. and 4.1% in the euro area. Yes, the world needs to address the climate crisis, she says, but nothing will stop the green economy faster than high prices, which may lead to tighter monetary policies and a steep drop in financing in developing nations.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

More than a decade after the U.S. subprime crisis sparked the Great Recession, the threat of default at giant property developer Evergrande is raising the prospect that ghost towns of unoccupied homes could trigger a China property slump. On this week’s podcast, Hong Kong-based economics reporter Tom Hancock visits Evergrande to see how the company is trying to raise money and avoid default, including by trying to sell its headquarters. Guest host Tom Orlik delves into the issues with Rhodium Group Director Logan Wright and Bloomberg economist David Qu, a former financial stability regulator at the People’s Bank of China.And finally, with Halloween just around the corner, Orlik ponders the scariest risks to the global economy with three Bloomberg economists: Anna Wong in Washington, Dan Hanson in London and Ziad Daoud in Dubai. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Central bankers are in a precarious spot in this chaotic pandemic economy. U.S. and U.K. consumers are grousing about rising prices and want some relief. But if government officials give it to them by raising interest rates, they may set back the recovery. It wouldn’t be the first time an errant move by a central bank triggered a recession.This week, Stephanie Flanders helps listeners navigate the perils of monetary policy with David Wilcox, Bloomberg’s director of U.S. economic research, and Jamie Rush, Bloomberg's chief European economist. Wilcox, who formerly directed the U.S. Federal Reserve’s research division, explains why the central bank is more worried that inflation will run too low over the long term, and less worried about the current 5.4% annual rate. Meanwhile, Rush argues that the Bank of England “lost its nerve” and is taking too aggressive an approach in battling price increases. And, in a dispatch from Brazil, reporter Maria Eloisa Capurro shares why a new mobile payment app called Pix has overtaken the nation of 213 million people faster than expected, with everyone from small business owners to panhandlers accepting it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

An old debate in economic circles is whether Europe’s strong safety net and worker protections are preferable to America’s more company-friendly labor rules. Now this classic argument is getting a fresh look, as economies on both sides of the Atlantic bounce back from pandemic work-stoppages. The U.K. and many euro-area nations adopted generous furlough programs that subsidized worker wages after Covid-19 halted business, and consequently kept workers on payrolls. The U.S., meantime, allowed companies to fire employees and then compensated the newly jobless workers with unemployment insurance payments.This week Stephanomics podcast, Bloomberg reporters Carolynn Look in Frankfurt and Reade Pickert in Washington share the ups and downs of the European and American approaches to pandemic worker relief. By one measure, Europe’s furlough strategy proved superior: the euro area’s unemployment rate peaked at 8.6% last year, far lower than the U.S.’s 14.8% high. Finally, Adam Posen of the Peterson Institute for International Economics shares with Stephanie Flanders why he prefers the euro area’s approach. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On Breakthrough, a new series from the Prognosis podcast, we explore how the pandemic is changing our understanding of healthcare and medicine. We start with an examination of long Covid, a mysterious new illness that has stumped doctors attempting to treat symptoms that last for months and potentially years. It has changed the way hospitals work and forced healthcare officials to prepare for the next pandemic. Covid has also opened the door to revolutionary technology: messenger RNA vaccines. It’s a technology that never could have been proven so quickly outside the crucible of that first pandemic year, 2020, and it holds big implications for the future of medicine. Breakthrough launches on Oct. 19. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, more than 60 container ships sat anchored off the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, California, waiting for their chance to unload as makers of everything from board games to bicycles sweat the looming holiday season. How did the world’s supply chains get so snarled? In the first episode of the new season of Stephanomics, reporters, manufacturers and economists across three continents explain the myriad problems plaguing shippers and offer a sobering prediction for the near future.First, Enda Curran, Bloomberg’s chief economics correspondent in Asia, takes us to Hong Kong, where a coffee machine manufacturer must wait up to nine months for key electronic components to arrive. Meanwhile, the cost of moving one container from Asia to the U.S. has risen from $2,000 at the start of the pandemic to $20,000. Next, U.K.-based economy reporter Lizzy Burden shares why one of the world’s most advanced economies could find itself with a shortage of fuel and food this winter, a problem exacerbated by Brexit and new rules on worker visas.Finally, Stephanie Flanders gets a taste of how U.S. restaurants are coping with a shortage of both supplies and waiters. Celebrity restaurateur Willie Degel and HSBC trade economist Shanella Rajanayagam explain why supply shortages haven’t improved despite the accelerating reopening of the global economy.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.