2026 looks likely to be the warmest year ever. Oceans are charged with energy to drive ever larger storm systems. Wildfires and droughts are ravaging the land. What if this is only the beginning? What if the climate is about to stage a chaotic breakout? Just how resilient will humanity be to a war with an implacable enemy that will give no quarter? What might it mean for the economy?

While global markets are fixated on the Gulf, cast a weather eye on the Eastern Pacific where a Super El Nino climate event is developing. It could lead to Climate Whiplash events in terms of flood, storms and drought, food inflation and increasing migration tensions. It never rains, but it pours – and that’s not necessarily good for the most important commodity on the planet: Water!

There are times when the course of history takes on a momentum of its own, most often in periods of conflict around hegemonic change – as exist today. This year’s Munich Security Conference will address stressed and fractured global alliances – while markets should be figuring out how conflict risks have risen and potential outcomes worsened.

Trump has been sending “for your immediate attention”, letters to former friends and allies hiking tariffs and threatening retribution if they retaliate. Yawn. Who cares? The Global economy gets it. America is no longer America. Global trade is shifting. Excellent – that spells opportunity!

A heatwave in London is unbearable – and we’re about to experience the third of this long, hot, summer. Elsewhere, increasingly chaotic climate events are triggering unpredictable weather disasters – including the tragic floods that hit Texas. We can’t deny the threat – but we can mitigate the effects if we acknowledge the threat is real, and invest accordingly.

100 days of Trump has distracted us from many big issues – including how his policies have knocked back climate science by decades. Former UK premier Tony Blair has identified massive failures in climate-change and net-zero policies. It’s time to consider how extreme weather will do even more economic damage than trade wars.

This morning’s Guest Post is from Adrian Jones, who argues there are clues in the fate of Henry VIII’s fixer Thomas Cromwell as to Elon Musk’s possible future. Society swirls around themes and narratives, and being caught on the wrong side of them as they chop and change can be fatal! Let’s not lose our heads over complex issues like Climate Change and Vaccinations, but understand them and the power of consensus…  

This morning the wind is blowing again in the UK. In Baku they are preparing for the gabfest that will be COP29. In Florida, Trump is getting ready to withdraw from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. As the planet experiences its warmest year on record, and chaotic climate events multiply – where do we go from here in climate finance?

The China Stock market rally comes on the back of hefty stimulus – and leaves many investors wondering if it’s sustainable or whether it’s wise to invest in China at this time. They may be missing the point – the China rally may be part of a wider Asian shift. Plus the end of UK coal.

Over the next 25 years the global shipping fleet will make a massive transition from dirty bunker fuels to new clean energies to achieve Net-Zero. The technologies are evolving, but are now coming on line. Methanol fuelled ships are now in operation – and they are investible!