An International Energy Agency report highlights the progress made in the capacity of green energy sources to meet growing electricity demand. Increased electrification, if underpinned by renewable and nuclear power, could drive economies while limiting carbon emissions.

With prospects of a Trump 2.0 looming, the WTO zombified and experts warning of mega threats and a ‘polycrisis’, the absence of cooperation makes one fear the worst.

Global crisis in trust in governments, the media and even NGOs means mounting difficulties in garnering public support for economically important innovation and often-controversial social change.

Innovation has allowed the Jockey Club to remain competitive and retain and glamour of the sport, despite three terrible pandemic years and the decline in horse racing betting globally.

At a time when climate change, pandemic threats and technological changes are compounding the disruptive force of more conventional risks such as demographic change and political turmoil, there is good reason to marshal the serendipitous forces that surround us.

With industrial policy interventions growing, the transparency provided by a new global tracker will enable organisations like the IMF and WTO to distinguish between the good and bad.

While Hong Kong has been unfriended by a West concerned about the city’s democratic freedoms and legal system, Dubai, an absolute monarchy, attracts less hand-wringing. The emirate seems to have borrowed the freewheeling spirit of Hong Kong of old, more crucial to progress than its specific political architecture.

2023 ended without the technical recession economists expected, but their warning of stagflation and a potentially crippling debt crisis should not be easily dismissed.

The social media revolution has delivered a host of problems which appear to be damaging students’ capacity to learn. This is a concern as tech-driven smart jobs will require stronger literacy, numeracy and scientific competencies.

The 2019 unrest and three pandemic years have delayed Hong Kong’s integration, diminished its importance and left much of its part in the bay area development plan unfulfilled. Time to dust off the plan and use it.

Like previous climate conferences, Cop28 seems to revolve around missed targets, unfulfilled commitments and the increasingly grave consequences of our failures. But China, while still the worst polluter, is quietly and steadily making a planet-leading energy transition.

Modern tyres are a chemical cocktail and scientists are realising that the microparticles they shed are actually quite harmful – to wildlife, the food chain and us.

The sight of steadily falling rents in Hong Kong’s top shopping districts and high-end stores closing bodes ill. For Hong Kong to thrive requires a significant restructuring of the economy with less reliance on tourists and their retail spending interests.

Alleging slave labour and drugs smuggling, some American senators are zoning in on how the country’s de minimis rule benefits Chinese companies. But levying duties on low-value shipments will only punish consumers and small businesses.

That the US and China reached agreements, however modest, on military communication and climate change, is cause for hope. Beyond the spotlight, it is the trust built among officials through various Apec working groups that makes the headline-grabbing agreements possible.

Climate-induced lightning is becoming more frequent and powerful, triggering more wildfires, particularly in Siberia, Canada and Alaska, and releasing the carbon locked in permafrost.

The world’s confidence in the US preference for civilised and consistent diplomatic engagement has yet to return. The possibility that Trump could return will make that even harder.

Almost all of the world’s worst food crises are the products of or worsened by war – from Afghanistan, Myanmar, Sudan and Somalia, to Syria, Yemen and now, Gaza.

While the economy grew 4.1 per cent in the third quarter, and unemployment and bankruptcy rates do not appear worrying, the feeling on the ground is quite different. In time, much more economic harm is likely to be revealed.

Hong Kong has been awash in wine in recent weeks, but the city is an outlier as the wine industry deals with climate change’s effects and shifting tastes. Warmer weather is weighing on global production, and demand is slipping as Generation Z is increasingly averse to alcohol and other risky behaviours.

Immigration rather than birth rates drives Hong Kong’s population, and the government should look to migrant flows for solutions to our demographic woes.

The US can’t solve its opioid crisis on its own, and as long as its cold war with China continues, effective cooperation is unlikely.

While the US, Europe and Western media were distracted by Ukraine and Israel’s war in Gaza, China brought together leaders from the Global South to celebrate 10 years of the Belt and Road Initiative. This showcased Beijing’s commitment to building infrastructure in the name of peace and development.

Many staple crops are under stress as climate change brings hotter, less stable weather, forcing food scientists to experiment with hardier varieties. Breakthroughs such as heat-resistant apples and salt-resistant rice hold great promise, but such progress takes a long time.

As weak growth and high debt forces the Global South to cut critical spending from education to climate mitigation, the Marrakech Principles are yet another rallying call for global cooperation in a divided world that seems likely to go unheeded.

Israel thought it had dealt with the Palestinian problem. There are lessons here for the handling of Myanmar’s Rohingya, Indian Kashmir, and Taiwan and Xinjiang.

At a time of increasing and interconnected crises, leading economists are worried trade fragmentation threatens to further undermine growth prospects. Sadly, they are whistling in the wind as powerful countries continue to dig deeper protectionist trenches.

The failures of Britain’s HS2 stand in stark contrast to the successful launch of Indonesia’s belt and road railway. The West has much to learn from China in building future-critical infrastructure.

Hong Kong is not alone in craving the return of China’s international traveller. But while tourism is on a rebound in China, it is trending towards less extravagant domestic travel. While the visitors numbers are not what they were pre-pandemic, Hong Kong remains the top destination for China’s outbound travellers – good news for the city’s economic recovery,

The media mogul has arguably shaped the news business as no one else has, but his legacy is also tainted by scandals over journalistic ethics and his role in stirring the pot of populist politics. His son and successor now faces multiple challenges, but the Murdoch star may have waned.