Hello! The Prince and the Papers: Prince Harry won his phone-hacking case against Mirror Group Newspapers today, with London’s High Court awarding him ~$180k in royalties. Today we're exploring:
Fossilized
After a few newsworthy bumps in the road, the COP28 climate conference came to a somewhat happy ending — depending on who you ask — as almost 200 countries made a landmark pledge to "transition away" from fossil fuels for the first time in history.
Representatives agreed to the deal in the final hours of the annual UN summit and were met with a standing ovation, though activists took issue with the way the language around fossil fuels, which account for almost 90% of the world’s CO₂emissions, had been dialed down in the new agreement.
The beginning of the end
With a slew of extreme weather events, ever-warming waters, and 2023 officially being declared as the hottest year on record this month, the intervention couldn't have come soon enough. Indeed, UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell expressed regret at not having “turned the page on the fossil fuel era” — but did hail the outcome as “the beginning of the end”.
While renewable energy generation has been ticking up in recent years, even surpassing coal for the first time in 2022, the amount of fossil fuel-generated energy that we’ve been using globally has hit new heights. According to the Energy Institute, consumption of fossil fuel energy reached a record 137,000 terawatt-hours in 2022, with 39% of that coming from oil alone.
Long shot
It seems like just yesterday that pharmaceutical company Pfizer, which pioneered one of the first vaccines for the COVID-19 virus, was being lauded as an American hero of the pandemic.
However, in the years since, the company has been plagued by a sales decline, as demand for Covid vaccines continues to diminish. Indeed, revenues only amounted to around $13bn in the last quarter — some 54% less than the $28bn peak seen in Q2 ‘22.
Pfizer shares sunk 7% on Wednesday following news that it expects to make just $8bn from Covid shots in 2024, down from $57bn just 2 years prior, with the company’s market cap. falling to $147bn as of yesterday: a 10-year low for the pharma giant.
Business booster
The drugmaker’s worsening sales outlook has triggered a $4bn cost-cutting effort at the company, up $500k from the previous cutbacks announced earlier this year, including laying off more than 2,000 workers worldwide.
In an effort to combat the Covid product downturn, Pfizer has looked to new treatment avenues to bolster sales; yesterday, it confirmed a $43bn acquisition of oncology drugmaker Seagen Inc., which has 4 FDA-approved cancer drugs under its belt to date. Even so, Pfizer’s botched attempts to develop an obesity pill have left it lagging behind peers like Eli Lilly that have capitalized on the booming weight loss drug market, expected to be worth $100bn by the end of the decade.
Bots illustrated
After some of its content was revealed to be AI-produced and accredited to non-existent authors, the CEO of Sports Illustrated was fired by the magazine’s publisher, The Area Group, earlier this week.
Writer profiles on the 70-year-old periodical's site were found to include headshots from an AI-generated picture marketplace, and certain articles featured sweeping, bot-like statements, such as “your financial status translates to your value in society.”
Cog in the machine
Although the dawn of AI has spurred fears about the influence it could have on several sectors — particularly tech, journalism, and creative industries, in part fueling this year’s writers’ strike — many workers still hold an it-won't-happen-to-me attitude towards the ‘robot revolution’.
Indeed, one poll found that, while 52% of Americans think ChatGPT will have a major impact on journalists’ jobs over the next 20 years, just 19% said the same for their own vocations, with a perhaps-naive27% anticipating no impact on their work whatsoever.
Even with the threat of work-replacing, AI’s infinite use for work-enhancing might just be too tempting for many journos. Indeed, a recent LSE survey of newsroom workers found that 85% had experimented with the tech to help with tasks, while nearly three-quarters agreed that artificial intelligence presents new opportunities for the sector — a view shared by the NYT, which just hired its first editorial director of AI initiatives.
• Giving season: 15% of Americans will be more generous with their tipping over the holidays than last year… while a more Scrooge-like 13% plan on tipping less.
• TikTok has become the first non-game mobile app to reach over $10bn in consumer spending across the App Store and Google Play, just shy of top earner Candy Crush Saga’s $12bn.
• It should cost (almost) a billion to look this good... Beyoncé’s net worth now stands at $800 million following the flawless success of her 2023 Renaissance World Tour.
• Deep dive into how Netflix's pivot to non-fiction has driven its $200bn business.
• Find Google's most-searched people, places, and moments in its Where's Waldo-style game.
Off the charts: Which online marketplace giant is laying off 11% of its staff, as the company continues to try and craft out its place in the increasingly crowded world of e-commerce? [Answer below].