Economics

FILE - Laboratory technicians develop a technology to mass produce Ebola vaccine, Aug. 14, 2014.

voanews.com - by William Eagle - May 7, 2016

The United States remains by far the most important source of funds for medical research and development for scores of diseases well-known to the developing world.

According to the latest available data from the independent research group Policy Cures, global donors contributed over $2 billion in public funding for research into what the medical community calls neglected diseases. The U.S. government accounted for over 70 percent of the amount.

But a new report from the Global Health Technologies Coalition, a group of nonprofits that promotes creation of vaccines and other tools to improve global health, says that over the past five years, funding has largely been flat. This is in contrast to the first decade of the 21st century, which saw a doubling of financial support. . . .

. . . The GHTC report asks the U.S. government to encourage private sector involvement in R&D with prizes, small-business innovation awards, tax credits and other incentives. It also recommends improved cooperation among the seven U.S. agencies involved in global health.

Image: A general view on the chimneys of the Hsieh-ho Power Plant in Keelung, northern Taiwan, 17 November 2015. EPA/DAVID CHANG

washingtonpost.com - March 16, 2016 - Chris Mooney

Roughly a year ago, the International Energy Agency announced a wonky yet nonetheless significant development. Looking at data for the year 2014, the agency found that although the global economy grew — by 3.4 percent that year — greenhouse gas emissions from the use of energy (their largest source) had not. They had stalled at about 32.3 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, just as in 2013.

The agency called this a “decoupling” of growth from carbon dioxide emissions, and noted that it was the “the first time in 40 years in which there was a halt or reduction in emissions of the greenhouse gas that was not tied to an economic downturn.” For decades prior to 2014, economic growth had pretty much always meant more pollution of the atmosphere, and a worsening climate problem.

BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES

huffingtonpost.com - by Claire van den Heever - February 26, 2016

CAPE TOWN, South Africa -- With the launch of Apple Pay in mainland China on Feb. 18, Apple has become the first foreign player to secure a place at the table for China's enormous mobile payment market. . . .

. . . Africa's largest lender by assets, Standard Bank, has opted for a more direct route: joining forces with WeChat to secure a piece of Africa's growing mobile payment market. The Standard Bank-backed WeChat Wallet was launched in November 2015 in the continent's most industrialized nation, South Africa, and gives users access to a variety of the Chinese version's most popular offerings, including peer-to-peer money transfers and in-app payments for taxis and other services.

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submitted by Albert Gomez

ellenmacarthurfoundation.org - January 19, 2016

Applying circular economy principles to global plastic packaging flows could transform the plastics economy and drastically reduce negative externalities such as leakage into oceans, according to this new report.

The New Plastics Economy: Rethinking the future of plastics provides, for the first time, a vision of a global economy in which plastics never become waste, and outlines concrete steps towards achieving the systemic shift needed.

The report was produced by the World Economic Forum and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, with analytical support from McKinsey & Company, as part of Project MainStream, a global, multi-industry initiative that aims to accelerate business-driven innovations to help scale the circular economy. It was financially supported by the MAVA Foundation.