Big Tech and cryptocurrencies are divisive topics among the investors, regulators, and executives who hold sway in tech and finance. Some defend Big Tech companies like Amazon, Alphabet, and Alibaba as solid businesses with great products and steady performance. Others attack the firms for monopolizing industries and bungling content moderation.
The Beijing Winter Olympics begin on Feb. 4, during which time all eyes are likely to be on the Games’ traditionally successful countries: the US, Norway, and Germany. These nations each regularly send delegations with hundreds of athletes, who consistently return home with huge medal hauls.
There is justified wariness when corporations make bold emissions reduction commitments: targets are easy to announce, pledges are a dime-a-dozen, and effective action is difficult to assess. The Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) is trying to sort the talk from the action.
Here at Quartz, we love data and we appreciate the power of a good graph. In fact, we like them so much that our newsroom produced 1,271 of our own as of Dec. 22, 2021!
In the second year of the covid-19 pandemic when everything seems a little strange, analyzing the way companies talk about their products, economic trends, the pandemic, and the future of technology can shed light onto their priorities and struggles. The stock market can’t be tamed, US inflation is higher than most Americans can remember, businesses are short-staffed, parts are scarce, crypto is booming, and remote work is normal for many.
In 2021, readers of English Wikipedia were most focused on notable deaths, American politics and political institutions, sports, and topics inspired by popular entertainment. It was the same story last year. And yet, none of the most popular Wikipedia pages in 2021 were related to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, according to Quartz’s analysis of Wikipedia’s statistics.
It’s almost inevitable: At some point in life, most working Americans will need to take a step back from work, to care for a new baby, look after a sick or aging family member, or take care of themselves due to personal illness.
Update: On June 24, 2022 the US Supreme Court voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, writing that “the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion.”
Virgil Abloh lived a full and adventurous life. In the short span of 41 years, the Ghanaian-American designer who died of cancer on Nov 28, managed to accomplish high-profile projects worth several lifetimes. Apart from running his own fashion label, Off-White, and leading Louis Vuitton’s menswear atelier, Abloh remained relentlessly in the spotlight through collaborations with brands like IKEA, Nike, Levi’s, Vitra, and Mercedes Benz.
Hi Quartz readers,
When former US president Barack Obama took the stage at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow on Nov. 8, he was contrite.
Even in 2020, a pandemic year—when planes sat on the ground, car travel seized up, ships stayed in their berths, and economic activity stalled everywhere—fossil fuel emissions fell by just 5.4%. And then, in 2021, they will rise again by a projected 4.9%, a “bigger than expected” rebound, according to researchers from the Global Carbon Project (GCP), which compiled the data.
COP26, the world’s largest climate conference, is underway in Glasgow. The event is meant to provide a space for leaders, policy makers, NGOs, activists, and corporations to debate the intricacies involved in keeping the world from catastrophic global warming. Whether or not that is achieved depends a lot on who is and isn’t at the table.
The rules for a new global market for carbon are being negotiated at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow this week. In theory, they could unlock billions in new funding to accelerate the low-carbon economy. But first, negotiators need to agree on a few highly technical, politically sensitive details left unresolved since 2015—even as independent researchers question the credibility of carbon credits themselves.
This weekend, attendees from across the world are arriving in Glasgow for COP26, the world’s largest climate conference. Organizers of the global summit, which begins on Oct. 31 and will run until Nov. 12, say they expect to see 30,000 participants. Among them will be at least 126 world leaders, representing 66% of countries on earth. It includes US president Joe Biden, Germany’s outgoing chancellor Angela Merkel, and Canada’s Justin Trudeau.
The world needs to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 in order to prevent catastrophic global warming. It’s a titanic task made even more difficult by the lack of up-to-date, reliable information about exactly where pollution comes from. Nearly all emissions information is based on years-old data self reported by emitters.
