One year on

President Biden’s clean energy bill, known as the Inflation Reduction Act, passed its first birthday. The legislation, worth up to $369 billion in tax breaks and subsidies, has catapulted the US to become a global leader in green technology, as well as advancing its 2050 net zero goals. However, complaints from European and Asian companies at being excluded from the investment party have prompted wider clean vehicle tax credits. Sectors such as utilities and transportation have already felt the benefit of the encouraging ‘carrot’. But the persuasive ‘stick’ might be needed to reduce industrial and aviation emissions.

Another BRICS in the wall?

The BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) gathered for their fifteenth annual conference. The agenda included the expansion of the bloc of emerging economies, as well as increasing trade in local currencies. There was also discussion about a future shared currency, aimed at challenging US dollar dominance. Meanwhile, China’s heavily indebted property sector returned to the headlines, as leading apartment builder Evergrande filed for bankruptcy in the US.  Reverberations across the sector, which is thought to represent over 25% of China’s GDP, could prompt further domestic stimulus measures to steady investor sentiment.

Multi-tasking Musk

Tesla slashed EV prices in China in its market share battle with leading local producer BYD. Founder Elon Musk backed ‘sacrificing margins to make more vehicles’ and forecast further price cuts. Meanwhile, Musk paraded the first production version of his electric pickup, known as Cybertruck, his ‘best product ever’. Elsewhere, the situation at X (the newly rebranded Twitter) appears steadier. Recent rival Threads acquired 100 million subscribers in the five days after its launch, a milestone which it took Twitter five years to achieve. Threads has since seen daily active user numbers slump below 12 million.