2023-08-16 15:16:12
Nikolai Tengen, head of the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund (assets of the fund amounted to 1,332 billion euros at the end of June), participated in a panel discussion at the presentation of the semi-annual financial results of the fund in Arendal (southern Norway) where several Norwegian decision-makers gathered this week.
He pointed to the significant impact of climate change on efforts to contain inflation in the world.
Although they have raised interest rates since the end of the Covid pandemic, central banks are currently struggling to curb the rise in consumer prices from Washington to Frankfurt.
“What one thinks regarding global inflation is that it can be very difficult to bring down,” Tengen said.
He talked regarding the relationship between climate change and the economy, saying, “We see this in food prices, such as the rise in olive oil, potatoes and beef, and all of these things increase inflation, but what is new in this matter is that (climate change) also affects productivity.”
Tengen referred to a summer that “is so hot in Europe this year that we can’t work in the middle of the day,” noting that bad weather hinders tourism.
“We close sectors during certain periods because of the weather,” he said.
July 2023, which witnessed heat waves and fires all over the world, was the hottest month ever, according to the European Copernicus Observatory.
work three days?
The sovereign fund headed by Tengen, which is fueled by the Norwegian state’s revenues from oil and gas, has made the climate one of its main concerns and imposed requirements in this regard on the companies in which it invests.
The fund, which invests mainly in equities but also in bonds and real estate worldwide, generated profits of 1.501 billion kroner (€131 billion) in the first half of the year, supported by equity markets.
With shares in more than 9,000 companies, the fund controls regarding 1.5% of the global stock market value.
Since the beginning of the year, the fund has benefited from the rise in stocks of technology companies, thanks to increasing investments in artificial intelligence.
This sector alone contributed regarding 788 billion crowns to the fund’s financial results, of which 135 billion thanks to Apple, 114 billion thanks to Microsoft and 84 billion thanks to Nvidia.
And Tengen considered that artificial intelligence “will change everything,” saying, “We will become more efficient, we will be able to escape from a lot of boring tasks and we will be able to focus on more interesting tasks.”
“Maybe we won’t need to work so much. Why do we work five days (a week)? (…) Maybe we will be able to work only three days,” he added.
On the same day, the Norwegian fund published a report urging companies to seize the opportunities offered by artificial intelligence, but with a sense of responsibility.
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