Standards

WHAT'S NEXT?: Improving standards are likely to be driven more by business and technological improvement than governments in the future. The latter will be under severe pressure to cut bureaucracy, speed policy making and improve their nation's productivity performance.

• [New] The UK government has recently laid out new rules that will force all coal power stations to close by 2025, but many are closing already as their profitability and efficiency plunges.
• [New] Progress continues to be made on efforts to adopt alternative risk-free rates ahead of the end of 2021, when the UK Financial Conduct Authority has said it will no longer compel or persuade banks to make LIBOR submissions.
• [New] NRDC will soon go to court to reverse the Trump rollback and reinstate the clean car and fuel economy standards, finalized in 2012, which would have cut heat-trapping pollution from new vehicles nearly in half by model year 2025.
• [New] The National Institute of Standards and Technologys quantum-resistant algorithm might not be completedand reflected in the National Security Agencys own standard until 2024.
• [New] The IA is instructing all listed companies in the UK to comply with standards set by the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures, which outlines how companies should calculate and disclose their exposure to climate risk to investors, by 2022.
• The Trump administration argues that willingness to break rules and institutions will produce major gains for the United States, but the relationship of power and interdependence changes over time, and too much manipulation can prove self-defeating.
• The threat of presenting frequent violators to a U.N. sanctions committee, coupled with the possible reputational risks involved, would force new norms of behavior.
• Without disclosure rules that allow investors to compare how businesses are meeting the climate challenge, the world risks missing targets to be carbon neutral by 2050.
• The Chinese ferrovanadium market is anticipated to witness additional demand for ferrovanadium in the coming years, mainly due to revised standards by the Chinese government for increasing the tensile strength of rebar products.
• Clumsy information sharing has taxed U.S. healthcare for decades, but new rules against information blocking establish patients' rights to access their medical data via API.
• Rishi Sunak could face having to increase taxes, abandon his fiscal rules or even scale back public spending if once again growth disappoints.
• By the year 2030, the AI-powered personalized medicine system is expected to set new standards in the industry making it feasible and efficient to get patient care.
• 2020 will see new standards, rules and oversight measures related to new technologies imposed.
• Airlines are lobbying to rewrite the rules of a global agreement designed to tackle aviation emissions, with the coronavirus outbreak expected to make its targets tougher to meet.
• The European Commission (2020 a) has temporarily lifted state-aid control rules to ensure that the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic do not undermine the economic viability of companies.
• Policy is aligned with international standards in order to make Abu Dhabi a pioneer in reducing the use of avoidable single use plastic and non-plastic materials by 2021.
• Title 24 in California requires new and retrofitted buildings to comply with wide-ranging energy efficiency standards, while New York City laws require large buildings to reduce energy consumption by 20% by 2030.
• AI will emerge as a real and powerful tool for marketers in 2020: the dataset feeding AI enables companies to predict consumer behavior and nudge them with highly targeted, personal offers.
• Japan is going to offer in 2020 the uniform international standards for use of drones which will be taken out on the statement of the World standardization organization.
• The UN's International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) will introduce stricter rules on carbon offsetting for airlines next year, in a bid to reduce greenwashing and ensure robust carbon accounting.
• Public anger and risks to the crucial tourism sector have spurred the Industry Ministry to order automakers to meet Euro 5 standards by next year and Euro 6 requirements by 2022.
• The European Union will outline a framework this year, which could see crypto wedged into existing regulations, or a whole new set of rules created.

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Last updated: 21 May 2020