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Europe blows with the wind and bets big on offshore energy.
It's World Business Express from the BBC World Service.
I'm Leana Bern.
France moves to ban social media for under-15s, and India and the EU edge closer to a long-awaited trade deal.
Yes, 10 European countries bordering or close to the North Sea, including Germany France, the UK and Norway, have pledged 113 billion to expand offshore wind capacity by 2030.
Dan Jorgensen is the EU's Energy Commissioner and was in the German city of Hamburg today, where the agreement was signed.
The most important part of this strategy of independence is to deliver more homegrown clean, affordable energy.
The North Sea has a huge potential.
We already produce a lot of offshore wind in the North Sea, as you all know, but we can produce much more.
Justin Rowlett is the BBC's climate editor, and he put this into context, for It's a vast amount of power that they intend to generate.
200 gigawatts of it will be wind farms connected to individual countries, but a big portion of it is also going to be wind farms that are interconnected to a number of countries so they can sell electricity to wherever the electricity is needed most.
And the argument runs that this means that they'll smooth out peaks of demand across Europe and reduce prices for everyone.
Yeah, huge investment, huge deal.
But why are these countries choosing to cooperate now?
I think they see benefits of working together in the North Sea.
Obviously, they have their own territorial areas and the majority of the wind farms will be built by companies in individual countries.
But, as I say, the plan is to work together on some of these and provide the facility to effectively share the power, and the idea is that this is a huge resource.
The UK Energy Secretary, Ed Miliband, described it as a kind of huge reservoir of power ready to be tapped, and tapping into.
That, he said, would get Europe and the UK off what he calls the fossil fuel roller coaster, by which he means the kind of variable prices we see in the gas markets, which is the main source of fuel to generate electricity in the uk and europe and justin beyond clean power.
Who stands to benefit in terms of jobs industry, investment?
Do we know anything about that yet?
That's a really good question.
I mean, there was this suggestion.
I don't know if people will have seen or heard the Trump speech at Davos, where he tilted against windmills as he insists on calling wind turbines and said you know, the majority of the technology is made in China.
Now, China definitely dominates in batteries and solar panels, but actually a bit over 40 of the market for wind turbines is supplied by european countries, so this is a technology that europe still has significantly more than a toehold, so there are lots of jobs can be created within the north sea countries that are coming together to sign this hamburg declaration, as it's being called.
That was the bbc's climate editor, justin raulat.
Now let's hear from france's president, emmanuel macron.
The brain of our children and our adolescents is not to be sold.
The brains of our children and our teenagers are not for sale.
That was President Macron at the weekend, explaining why he wants to fast-track legislation to ban social media for under-15s, following Australia's lead.
Let's hear from Clara Capaz, France's ambassador for AI and digital affairs.
The impact on mental health is not something that has only been pushed forward by the French group.
It's also something that has been discussed internationally because of the way the platforms are working.
It creates anxiety.
It gives access to content that should not be accessible for minors sometimes violent content, sometimes addictive content, sometimes even worse, like videos that are pushing for harmful behavior.
And the will of the president is to move forward with a ban.
And that's the law that is looking at the parliament today.
How closely is France following Australia's blueprint?
Yeah, obviously, this is something that has been resonated internationally.
And Australia passed this law and implemented it a few months ago.
The UK is also looking into it.
Countries like Germany, Greece, Spain.
There are so many countries now all around the world looking at that.
And this is a good thing.
As an ambassador, this is definitely something we're going to continue pushing for because, at the end of the day, to protect all children, it needs to be a worldwide conversation.
Now in Australia a lot of people have said this is great, but also that there are children who are getting around these regulations.
How would France stop that?
With every regulation, there will be some people trying to go around it.
But ultimately we've done that with porn content websites and the age verification tools that were implemented on those websites, as a result of which now one kid out of two who was accessing those websites before is not accessing it anymore.
So it's not perfect, but it's definitely going in the right direction.
And I'm sure that, with the time being, more and more countries looking into it, the solutions will become stronger and stronger.
And just the society as a whole will start accepting that there is this new rule and it will give so much more liberty to kids to enjoy their free time.
Parents to, you know, just say this is the rule for everyone.
It's not just me as a parent being annoying with my kids.
So things will, you know, continue moving forward.
That was Clara Chappaz, a France's ambassador for AI and digital affairs.
More than 820000 homes in the US are without power as a huge winter storm is sweeping across the country.
More than 14500 flights were cancelled on Sunday, with thousands more delayed and further cancellations today.
More than half the population are affected by the storm and nine people have died so far.
All right, let's talk about gold, because for the first time ever, it's gone above $5,000.
Rachel Winter, Investment Manager at Killick & Co.
Rachel, you've got to explain this to me.
What's behind it?
Yes, it's had the most incredible run.
It's up over 82% over the last 12 months.
I think there are a couple of reasons for this.
So the first is that gold is often viewed as a safe haven.
When people are concerned about geopolitics, they might buy into gold.
So, for example, if people are worried about Venezuela Greenland, it's possible they're buying gold for that reason.
Another possible explanation is the weakness of the US dollar.
Now, gold trades in US dollars.
So when the dollar is weak, that means gold looks attractive.
So perhaps more people are buying in because of that.
And then finally, I think there is a bit of momentum behind this because gold has done so well.
It's been in the press a lot.
And therefore, I think people are looking at it and buying in, hoping that that trend will continue.
So you've got a weak dollar and a strong yen.
How does that play into things?
Well, the weaker dollar makes gold look a bit more attractive.
But as you mentioned, we have had some quite interesting moves in those two currencies today.
The yen has strengthened and the dollar has weakened even further.
And there has been some speculation that the US and Japan have intervened in those two currency markets to make those two moves happen.
Interesting.
All right, Rachel Winter, Investment Manager at Killick & Co.
Always a pleasure having you on the programme.
Now, India and the European Union have finished up negotiations on a trade deal.
It's been seen as a historic link-up that took two decades to get over the line, and it will contend with strained US relations.
To tell us of all the benefits, here's Anjay Srivastava, who's a former Indian Trade Service officer.
There will be clear gains for both India and the European Union.
For India, it gets access into a large, 20 trillion European Union market with 450 million rich consumers.
Even though tariffs are slightly on the lower side in the European Union, tariffs on goods of Indian interests, for example garment, footwear etc.
Is high, about 12 to 15 percent or 18 percent.
When these tariffs go down, India with zero tariff will be able to compete better with competitors like Vietnam or Bangladesh and export more to the EU.
For the EU side, The gains are again, India is a high tariff country.
When the tariff falls, come down, you can send more of its cars, currently cars.
The tariffs on cars is about 100%.
You can send more cars when the tariffs come down.
You can send more wines and whiskeys where tariffs are 150%.
So both the sides will gain.
That was AJ Shrivastava, founder of Global Trade Research Initiative.
And that is it from World Business Express from the BBC World Service.
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Just search for World Business Express wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm Leanna Byrne.
Have a great day and thanks so much for listening.
If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed?
In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed.
But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it.
It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories.
I'm Helena Merriman and in a new BBC series I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story.
What did they miss the first time?
The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs.
Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
