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First Move with Julia Chatterley

The International Energy Agency Says Renewable Investment Must Triple; President Biden to Unveil 90-Day Plan to Tackle Shortages; William Shatner Heads to Space. Aired 9-10a ET

Aired October 13, 2021 - 09:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[09:00:30]

JULIA CHATTERLEY, CNN BUSINESS ANCHOR, FIRST MOVE: Live from New York, I'm Julia Chatterley. This is FIRST MOVE, and here is your need-to-know.

Going green. The International Energy Agency says renewable investment must triple.

Breaking bottlenecks. President Biden to unveil a 90-day plan to tackle shortages.

And to boldly go. "Star Trek's" William Shatner heads to space.

It's Wednesday, let's make a move.

Captain's log star date: 10132020, a warm welcome to a truly star struck hour on CNN, just one hour to go before William Shatner takes his first

move into space on a jet. Bezos-owned Blue Origin rocket. It's one small step in an accelerating space tourism industry. It's an event of

intergalactic proportions for space geeks, and Star Trekies he's like me. CNN will bring you complete coverage of Shatner's bold beam up throughout

the next hour.

Blue Origin, far from the only space shot this Wednesday there. We've got bank earnings blasting off with JPMorgan kicking off Q3 profit season.

Earnings beating for them on the bottom line amid a rocket like $2 billion release of loan loss reserves that is a positive economic signal.

That said, another month of U.S. inflation liftoff, too. New data showing consumer prices in the United States up a hotter than expected four tenths

of a percent last month. That's a 5.4 percent year-over-year rise, prices once again hitting a 13-year peak. Make no bones about it, the outward

inflation trajectory, not their only mandate, of course, but it's the primary focus and the main worry for the monetary mission controllers at

the Federal Reserve and the I.M.F. is also now saying Central Banks must act fast to reduce the risks of stagflation.

The big question for investors, of course, is whether that uncertainty is priced into financial markets or whether things like share prices must

adjust.

Not for today. Here is a look at the global stock market launch. Just a touch of green as you can see, premarket on Wall Street. Tech is set to

bounce. How about also for green space shot, too, while we're at it, because that's what's needed to fight climate change.

Let's get to the drivers.

We need to triple clean energy investments by 2030. That's the message from the International Energy Agency calling in its annual global outlook,

saying the current climate pledges in place are simply not enough. It also comes as the world struggles with soaring energy prices.

Clare Sebastian joins us with all the details. Clare, and I read through quite a chunk of this report, I have to say, and not only do they want to

see a tripling of green energy investment, but 70 percent of that investment needs to come from emerging markets, and that gives you a sense

of the scale of this challenge.

CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Julia, this is a huge leap from where we are now and essentially what this report is showing is

it's really too late to fix the roof as it were while the sun is shining. It's already raining. The world needs to sort of push forward with

renewable energies at the same time, as it's facing a major crisis when it comes to supply of fossil fuels amid surging demand.

This is what the Executive Director of the IEA, Fatih Birol said in a statement as part of this report, he said: "It's hard to understate the

dangers inherent in today's shortfall in spending on clean energy transitions compared with the levels required. If we do not correct it

soon, the risks of destabilizing volatility will only grow as we move forward."

We're in a situation now where demand is so high, prices are now so high, and the IEA says that that is overshadowing the shift towards clean energy

that countries are trying to do at the same time. But interestingly, Julia, this transition is going to be fraught with volatility. The IEA not only

saying that we need to triple investment in renewable energy, but they are saying that current investment in oil and gas is based on a sort of

presumption of static or falling demand so that they are sort of hinting that there needs to be investment in both.

I think that's a sign of the sort of bizarre time that we're in in terms of this transition.

CHATTERLEY: That's such a great point, Clare, and I'll stick with the analogy of the theme of the day that we're sort of building the rocket

after takeoff, quite frankly, and for the first time in one of these reports, we actually do see oil demand coming down in certain cases.

Actually, we could hit oil I believe in peak 2025.

[09:05:06]

CHATTERLEY: But natural gas demand is increasing in all of the scenarios over the next five years. And I think to your point, the risk here is that

we have a dislocation short term where, while we're ramping up energy and renewables, we don't have enough fuel to prevent fuel prices rising quite

dramatically. And we're seeing it already, in fact, in the short term, and the IEA is warning about this, too.

SEBASTIAN: Yes. And this Julia, puts the ball in the court of countries like Russia. We hear from President Putin today speaking at an energy

conference, and essentially saying that the problem isn't a lack of natural gas, it's bad policies in Europe. He is saying that Russia is prepared to

discuss additional steps, that approving new pipelines, like the Nord Stream 2 would help the situation. So, he is really using this for his

political gains.

And meanwhile, in Europe today, they are pledging to spend more on renewable energy, but they are also saying that in the meantime, they're

going to have to spend on supporting their vulnerable populations through a very cold potentially winter with soaring prices.

So, we've got spending on natural gas and oil, we've got spending on renewable energy, and we've got spending on supporting populations in the

meantime at the same time as the global economies recover from COVID-19. It's a very, very expensive transition at this point.

CHATTERLEY: Yes, we've got to get the policy right. And I've said it before and I said it late last week, and I think earlier this week, as

well, far from it for me to agree with President Putin, but on this point, and obviously it favors his output from his economy, but I think he's

right, we've got to get the policies right. Otherwise, we're going to have a real crunch in the short term.

Clare Sebastian, thank you very much for that.

He is boldly going where no 90-year-old actor has gone before. Yes, Captain Kirk from the original "Star Trek" series is on board today's Blue Origin

space tourism flight. All being well, takeoff is in less than an hour. And Kristin Fisher has the latest on the mission from the launch site in Texas.

Kristin, great to have you with us. He admitted to CNN actually in the past week that he's nervous about the strip and I think we all understand that

nerve. But do you think it's turned to excitement now as we head towards launch hour?

KRISTIN FISHER, CNN SPACE AND DEFENSE CORRESPONDENT: Julia, I think the word he used was "terrified." He said his act -- he was very excited, but

also terrified to go into space. And I really found that refreshing because I don't think that I've ever heard an astronaut or a soon to be astronaut

really admit that level of fear before going into space.

But you know, hey, that's what this new era of space tourism is all about, everyday people getting the chance to go into space. And on this mission,

William Shatner and Audrey Powers who is a Blue Origin employee, they are special guests of Blue Origin, meaning they are not paying any money to go

on this trip.

But there are two other paying customers. They are two big wealthy tech entrepreneurs, though it's unclear exactly how much they had to pay for a

seat on what is New Shepard's 18th launch. Blue Origin has had 17 successful consecutive test flights. So, this is a solid and tested

vehicle. But recently, there have been some concerns about Blue Origin's safety. This has been brought up in an essay by more than 20 current and

former Blue Origin employees.

And so there's a lot of attention on Blue Origin right now, both good and bad. But clearly, the decision to send Jeff Bezos's childhood hero into

space, not just something of, you know, real sentimental value for Jeff Bezos, but also a smart PR move as well.

CHATTERLEY: Yes, I was about to say, can't miss the PR move that this represents quite frankly, because as you said, he is an actor. He's not an

entrepreneur. He's not an engineer. He's not an astronaut. But I think he has contributed to all of us who have dreamt about life beyond the stars,

getting back to space. And that has, to your point got us to where we are today in terms of the private investment like Jeff Bezos, like the Elon

Musk's that have dreamed big, too.

FISHER: Yes, and Julia, think about the fact that over the last six months, there have been six crewed launches in six months to launch from

U.S. soil and then compare that to what we saw after the retirement of the space shuttle fleet in which there were zero crewed launches from U.S. soil

for almost a decade.

And so we're seeing this explosion in human spaceflight capabilities coming from the private sector. Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin, Richard Branson's Virgin

Galactic, and as you mentioned of course, Elon Musk's SpaceX who just a few weeks ago sent four all civilians, fully civilian crew into orbit for three

days.

So this crew here today, this is a suborbital flight. They are going up and down 10 minutes roughly from start to finish, only four minutes of

weightlessness. But you know, clearly there is a market for this.

[09:10:05]

FISHER: I mean, Jeff Bezos himself said back in July that they have received millions and millions of dollars from people who want to go on

trips like this. So, I know some folks say, why would you spend that amount of money? We don't know exactly how much, but why would you spend that

amount of money for just a 10-minute flight, four minutes of weightlessness? But clearly, there is a market for it.

CHATTERLEY: Yes, there clearly is. And as you said, he is not paying for that ticket. I wonder if he's being paid to do this.

We shall continue to wonder, Kristin Fisher, thank you so much for joining us and we'll have live coverage of the launch right here on CNN with

Kristin, too.

Thank you once again.

Okay, let's move on. The White House is planning what it calls a 90-day sprint to fix the supply chain crisis. According to a senior official, the

President meets with port operators and carriers later today. He wants a plan to ease the bottlenecks and backlogs that are threatening the

recovery.

Matt Egan joins me now, including in certain cases, I believe two ports working 24/7. This is a great idea. It would have been an even greater idea

perhaps three months ago, if not more, but Matt, what more do we know?

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Yes, Julia, that's very true. We know that we're in the middle of a supply chain nightmare right now. There is this epic

congestion at ports around the world. There is a serious lack of truck drivers, and there are shortages of so many things, including computer

chips, which go into everything from smartphones and coffee machines to Pelotons.

And all of this really impacts consumers around the world because it means higher prices, fewer options, and shipping delays.

So yes, in hindsight, I do think that some White House officials probably wish that they were launching this 90 day sprint earlier. But here we are.

Now, the key part of that announcement, to your point is the fact that they're moving to 24/7 operation for some key companies. Now that includes

the Port of Los Angeles, which is a big deal, because that would move the Port of LA into alignment with the Port of Long Beach.

And together these two ports, they handle 40 percent of shipments into the United States and there have been really, really long backlogs there. So

that is very important.

Now, President Biden and White House officials, they're meeting with key stakeholders today virtually at this roundtable event, and this meeting

will include your port officials, the Chamber of Commerce, executives from Walmart and FedEx, Target, UPS, and you know, they're going to address some

of these really key issues.

Now, there is a lot of debate over how long the supply chain situation is going to last. Moody's Analytics put out a report, they said they think

that the nightmare is going to get worse before it gets better and they pointed to how there is no concerted global effort to address it.

But JPMorgan CEO, Jamie Dimon, he just said this morning that he thinks there is quote, a good chance that a year from now, we won't be talking

about supply chains at all, which sounds kind of nice.

So Julia, a bit of cautious optimism there from one of America's leading CEOs.

CHATTERLEY: Good grief, but Matt, a year. That's a long time and there are plenty of issues to come between then and now. And so that actually makes

me nervous, not happier. But at least we have some sense of end in sight.

Apple, because this is one of the rumored companies impacted by supply chains, specifically, semiconductor chips. There are all sorts of rumors

that they're having to slash production of the iPhone 13. We have about 30 seconds, Matt. What do we know on this?

EGAN: Well, this would be one of the most tangible examples of how supply chains are impacting real consumers because Apple according to Bloomberg

needs slashing its 2021 shipment targets because of the supply chain issues. We haven't heard from Apple.

But Bloomberg is saying that they're going to cut their goal by 10 million iPhones. Again, that's due to the prolonged chip shortage. Also, we just

learned this morning that consumer prices in the United States returned to the highest level since 2008. A lot of it is energy, but it's also supply

chain. So Julia, it's hard to see how inflation cools off until supply chains get unscrambled.

CHATTERLEY: Yes, I mean we have to wait and see on this case. But as you make the point and I think and we talked about it there and you briefly

mentioned it, we could see the Ports of Los Angeles, we could see the Port of Long Beach going to 24/7 and I believe that's around 40 percent of the

container traffic that the United States takes.

But, Matt, it's not just about dealing with the goods that are coming into port, it's also about transferring them around the country and I know you

mentioned UPS is going to be one of the people that attend these meetings today. If you can't hire the truckers, if you can't get the labor, if you

can't sort out the logistics that takes these packages and goods around the country, then you've still got a problem.

Are they going to tackle hiring and finding the right people to enter these jobs and to transfer these goods around the country because it is part of

the chain, too.

[09:15:02]

EGAN: Yes, Julia, you hit the nail on the head. I mean, maybe the weakest part of the chain right now is the truck driver situation. That's the same

reason why we saw gas stations run dry in the United Kingdom, and this is a global problem.

And just yesterday, we learned that there are still more than 10 million job openings in the United States and a record number of Americans quit

their jobs in August. And this is being driven by sort of this transformation of the workforce.

I asked Jamie Dimon about it this morning, and he said that basically that COVID has impacted the way workers, their mindset around how they think

about work. And he said, you know, it's a good thing, but a lot of economists I've talked to say it's going to take some time, Julia to sort

out.

CHATTERLEY: Makes perfect sense to me. It's just going to take some time. Matt Egan, thank you so much for joining us on that.

EGAN: Thank you.

CHATTERLEY: Thank you. Now coming up, prepare for liftoff, Captain Kirk. We're just minutes away from actor William Shatner's voyage to space. We

will bring you full and live coverage of the Blue Origin launch. Stay with us.

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