While we celebrate

                                 While we celebrate

While we celebrate our world is changing. The abrupt drop in oil prices is having unforseen consequences. Something very few, or maybe even no one, envisaged a short time ago. Analyst are now discussing whether this price drop has been carefully engineered or whether it came as the result of a number of causes converging to create the fall.

Independently of the how, the oil price drop is causing a swift alteration in world geopolitics. Among the temporary losers Rusia, Iran and Venezuela are having a rough time. The way they are adapting to the changes will have a bearing on politics and business. Options become more limited and budgets are to be trimmed in order to adapt to the new situation.

After two years of secret negotiations between the US and Cuba, the oil price drop sets the ideal scenario for a long awaited agreement, or the beginning of a long awaited agreement.

For our Latin America, this is probably one of the resulting events that is bound to have a strong bearing on future politics and also on future business trends.

For those of us who concern ourselves with Climate Change and a fair Sustainable Development, the picture is still not crystal clear. Will oil prices drop affect the development of clean energy? Is the political willingness to curb Global Warming shown by China and the US strong enough not to be altered by the new World Scenario? The US and China appear to be among the winners of this temporary shift in geopolitics. So, maybe, Global Warming will not suffer. But this "conclusion" is  in the field of surmise, at least for the time being.

What we may probably say with less chances of being proved wrong is that when New Year celebrations are over, we will be looking at a world that has changed beyong anything we expected could happen in such short a period.

                  Our best wishes to you all, faithful readers,
                        of a very Happy New Year 2015!

 
                                Mauricio López Dardaine