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This is the Bloomberg DAYBAQ podcast. Good morning, It's Wednesday, the third of December. I'm Caroline Hepga in London.
And I'm Stephen Caroline Brussels. Coming up today. The Kremlin makes positive noises following Russia US talks, but stops short of backing a peace plan for Ukraine.
Open AI CEO Sam Altman declares a code read as the firm scrambles to improve chat GPT with rivals snapping at its heels, plus.
A truck's worth every second. Why global plastic pollution is forecast to hit two hundred and eighty million tons a year by twenty forty.
Let's start with a roundup of our top stories.
Talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US Envoy Steve Whitcoff on a plan to end Russia's war in Ukraine concluded after nearly five hours without a deal. According to the Kremlin, Putin held very useful talks, but a compromise hasn't been reached yet on the critical issue of territorial control.
The former US Ambassador to Ukraine, Steve Pifer, says the Russians and Ukrainians remain far apart, and he believes Putin is using the talks to drive a wedge between the United States and Europe.
What the Krewmen hopes is that they can somehow continue to string President Trump along and get him to sort of back away and not continue the kind of support that Ukraine has received from the West over the past three and a half years, whereas Europe has made clear that it is prepared to continue that support.
Steve Pifer, and now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, was speaking after Vladimir Putin earlier accused European leaders of sabotaging peace efforts with unacceptable changes to proposals originally drawn up between the US and Russia.
The European Union has reached a deal to phase out Russian gas a year earlier than originally planned. Negotiators representing members States, the European Parliament, and the European Commission agreed a deal in the early hours of this morning to gradually prohibit liquified natural gas imports from Moscow by the end of twenty twenty six. That's in addition to a plan to end pipeline gas imports by September twenty twenty seven.
It means the BLOCK can finally end its energy reliance on Moscow as it looks to the US and the Middle East as alternative suppliers of.
NG Francis President Emmanuel macrom is preparing for togs with the President cheating paying as part of a three day visit to China. Beijing wants support from France, a fellow member of the UN Security Council, in its dispute with Japan over Taiwan status. Wombrooks freddie Fulston has more.
President Xi is looking to court Macron as part of a diplomatic effort to isolate Japan's new Prime Minister, Senai Takeichi. Macron's priority is to address global trade tensions and press she to use his influence on Putin to end the war in Ukraine. Kirs Starmer's team will be watching closely as the UK Prime Minister prepares for a visit next month.
It comes as China condemned the UK's decision to once again delay plans for a Chinese super embassy in London, an ongoing saga in Westminster in London.
Freddie Fulston Bloomberg Radio.
Now a tax holiday on newly listed UK shares is set to spark a revival of London's IPO market. So that's according to a top banker who says that plans to exempt stocks of freshly public London companies from a zero point five percent stamp duty for three years has resonated well. Anthony Goodman, co CEO at Goldman Sachs International, speaking at the Financial Times its Global Banking Summit, so the move will create a more level playing field than other markets.
Open A CEO Sam Altman has declared a code red situation has more rivals to chachipt emerge. Bloomberg understands the tech boss sent an internal memo calling for employees to put in a surge to improve the AI chatbot and delay work on other initiatives like AI agents and advertising. Bloomberg Tech Europe anker Tomackenzie says the issue comes down to financing and.
It does speak to that funding story, the need to have those deals, the need to raise capital, have that liquidity and raise debt as well. For open AI, which does not have the balance sheet of course of the likes of Alphabet and needs that liquidity and that funding to spend not just on the infrastructure, but to the ensure that there is adoption of their products, and particularly GPT.
Tom McKenzie speaking there, Will Altman didn't directly address his reasons for encouraging the push, Sources tell Bloomberg he recently warned workers at Google's AI resurgence could cause temporary headwinds for the firm. OpenAI declined to comment on the reports of the memo.
And those are our top stories for you this morning. Looking at the markets US and your opin stop futures, little brighter Eurostox Swifty futures up by a quarter of one percent. There's been a better session in Asia to the costb Index up by one point one percent. Gains for the nick A actually declines though in China, so those are the outlying markets. Bitcoin has rebounded to a closely watched story, up by two point four percent. We
trade now above ninety three thousand dollars present. Trump says he will announce his selection to lead the Federal Reserve in early twenty twenty six, usually important for the bond markets. Tenure US yields this morning trading down a basis point at four spots zero seven, and the dollar has weakened this morning. So Bloomberg Dollar Spot index currently down a tenth of one percent. You've got the greenback weakening against all major currency pairs. So those are the markets at a moment.
We'll bring you more on those Kremlin talks over Ukraine and whether their reason for optimism are caution, plus why global plastic demand is set to keep surging. We've also Caroline in working our very human eyes over the writing by our colleagues on AI this morning. Plenty to read across Bloomberg on this subject as always, but a couple
of stories that have stood out for us. One in particular, our opinion columnist Dave Lee has been tackling some of the Internet outrage over the re released Beatles anthology documentary, which AI was used to restore and enhance old footage of the band. Sounds like a great idea, except people put spot at things like John Allen's guitar and one performance appeared to have about ten strings at Paul McCartney's face didn't look quite right. One fan on Radit remarking
that he looked like a shrunken head. This is look, we're kind of back into the territory of how good is this technology? Really, and Dave kind of digs into the idea of because there's been resistance, of course about from Paul McCartney, in particular to some of the UK rules around copywriting and AI, although he has supported the use of the technology to for example, support the Now
and Then song three as well. Yeah, the kind of fine line between what's good and rice when it comes to applying AI to creative products like music or a film, And then when does it get just a bit weird and too much?
Can I say something? I just think this is like bad plastic surgery, isn't it for AI? If it's wrong, it looks really freakish. But actually the world has largely kind of accepted moderate tweaks. Maybe, But does it fundamentally alter I mean plastic surgery for age and beauty, but AI for history, for your cultural icons? Does it all to something fundamental? I don't know. I feel very curmudgeonly
saying that I do. Even I dislike just remastering of old records in Maria Callas and so on, so you know, I'm a purist.
I think Colin firmly in the letter B Camp clearly on this front. You can read Davely's a piece at Bloomberg dot com for its lash opinion. We'll put a link to it in our podcast show notes as well.
Now, let's bring you more on the talks between the US and Russia over Ukraine. The discussions were described in polsitive terms by both sides, but it's unclear what progress was made. Tony Halpin, who leads our team covering Russia's economy and government, joins us now for more on this. Tony, Hello, what came out of this huge important meetings? Good morning.
Well, there was a lot of positive rhetoric from the Kremlin side, at least we haven't had a US read out yet, but there wasn't a great deal of substance on what the two sides might have agreed on on where the disagreements remain unbridgable apart from the question of territory, which the kreminin Foreign policy aid Ulshookov said they didn't
really reach any compromise on. And since that's such a central issue about the amount of Ukrainian land that Ukraine that Russia is trying to take and have recognized as its own, it suggests there's still plenty of work left to do.
So what happens next. Then does a meeting between Trump and Putin look likely? At this stage?
Eurosha was pretty cautious about that. Actually, he said it would depend on the progress that was being made. And previously President Trump has said that he's not really interested in meeting with Putin and Zelenskin less a deal is on the table. It doesn't seem that a deal is
on the table currently. We're waiting still to see what Steve Wikkopp and Jared Kushner report back to President Trump and what President Trump has to say about The meeting was a fairly lengthy one five hours, But so far, at least, nobody's talking about any kind of renewed summit between Putin and Trump.
So where is Ukraine in this Ukrainian president saying that he is ready to receive all signals from the talks. How much, say, does Ukraine have in these conversations.
Yes, it's a trick. I mean, let's not forget Ukraine is the victim in this war, right, They're the ones that were invaded by Russia. It's their sovereign territory that US and Russian negotia we're discussing yesterday in carving up that's made it very difficult for Ukrainian President Voladimir Zelensky. Ukrainian negotiators were in Florida at the weekend talking to the US. The US was trying to shape the peace
plan ahead of the meeting with Putin yesterday. But Zelenski's leverage is pretty limited with the US, and he's very reliant on European support really to kind of back up the positions that he's taking and his efforts really to restrict the amount of Russian demands that have been made upon him.
And there was some saber rattling from Vladimir Putin as well going into these talks, these comments that reported that he wasn't planning to go to war with Europe, but if Europe suddenly wants to go to war and starts when we are ready right now is what he's reported and said, how should we be reading those comments in the context of the talks that were about to happen at that stage.
Yeah, So I think at some levels this is basically just high level trolling by Poutin. I mean, his whole stackergy at the moment is to basically restrict discussions about the outcome in Ukraine. To Russia and the US and to sideline Europe and to cast it as not serious. So he wants to show really that you know, if Europe saber rattling about war with Russia, he doesn't regard that as serious because, let's face it, Russia is one
of the world's biggest nuclear powers. And as he said, you know, there wouldn't be anybody to talk to if war really did escalate between Russia and Europe. And so this is part, I think of his strategy to say that the future of Ukraine is a matter between him and Trump and Europe should just butt out.
Really.
Yeah, well, let's see what emerges then. On the US side, we did here from Marco Rubio an interview with Fox News, saying that trying to end the war in a way that protects Ukraine is the US goal. So we've had that so far. Tony, thank you so much for being with us. Tony Halpin leads our team covering Russia's economy and government, talking about those talks on Ukraine. Stay with us. More from Bloomberg DAYBAKEUOPE coming up after this.
The global production of new plastic is set to increase by fifty two percent by twenty forty overwhelming waste management systems. That's the alarming finding from a new report from the American ENGLPEW Charitable Trusts. Are Reporter Tea out of Bio is with us for more on this story. Teama, what does this research say about our use of plastic in the future.
Well, I've been pouring over this research and our great piece about it on the terminal this morning, and in short, from reading it, it seems like things are about to get a lot worse unfortunately. I mean, we've known for a while now that plastic isn't great for our bodies, it's not great for the planet, but this report shows that there's clear evidence that it's clogging beaches and oceans, and also that microplastics are entering our bodies and harming
our health. And despite this, what is striking about these findings is that we are still continuing to produce plastic at accelerating rates. And because of that, one of the key findings that has exposed in this report is that global plastic pollution will hit two hundred and eighty million metric tons per year by twenty forty. That's a dump trucks worth of plastic every second. Global production of new
plastic is set to increase by fifty two percent. That's twice as much as waste management systems are increasing to deal with it, so it's quite a staggering amount. But there are also some interesting insights here about the future,
especially when it comes to international cooperation. So the report talks about how in August there were talks to forge a sort of international treaty to kind of rain in plastic pollution, but it was blocked by countries that produced the majority of the material that would have been blocked in those proposals. So it seems like the outlook here is a pretty bleak all things considered.
Yeah, sounds absolutely grim. The consequences of increasing plastic use that the research also describe some of those sounds quite alarming. Yeah, there are some pretty big consequences.
And it's great that this report is it's kind of a hybrid, so you can see data, current data from recent research, but then it puts that into a model which helps to predict outcomes under different policy scenarios, and included in that are some of the worst case scenarios. So, for example, they are about sixteen thousand chemicals in plastics and out of those, scientists think that about a fourth could be harmful to our health. There are also some
big environmental risks. So under the current trajectory, plastic related greenhouse gas emissions are expected to surge by fifty eight percent a year, and that means that if plastic production were a country, it would be the third largest emitter
of gases like carbon dioxide in the world. But what is interesting as well here is that Pew has done some pretty detailed modeling about those consequences, and I think for me, the most striking of those is that the authors estimate that the world's population would lose five point six million total years of healthy life in twenty twenty five, and that's nine point eight million years in twenty forty.
So I mean, I suppose the biggest impact or the biggest consequence that comes out of this is that impact on or the shortening of human life that could come out of this plastic production.
And what solutions to the researchers from QARFO, well, actually.
They don't think it's some sort of innovative new solution or invention. They actually say that countries and communities already possessed the tools to reduce the manufacture and the use of plastic quite greatly. They are suggesting things like better productions and packaging design, and also investing in the infrastructure to support recycling so that we don't always have to produce new plastic products. There's also policy solutions, so ending
subsidies for plastic production and also expanding waste collection. But coming back to that gloom we talked about in the original forecast, they do can see that microplastics will be harder to control.
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