First question: You warned many times over the last few years of the risks of a new viral pandemic.  What do you think will happen next with COVID?

Yes.  In The Future of Almost Everything for example, my 17th book published in 2019, I again warned of viral pandemic threats.  

On page 19, I wrote a list of Wild Cards - top of which was ""Viral plaque - rapidly spreading, cases in every nation".  Another on the list was "Miscalculation by a powerful nation leading to sustained regional conflict" - but that's another story.

I have been tracking many new mutant viruses for over three decades now and on average we see one every year, often emerging in the Far East for reasons we don't fully understand.

When I was 30 years old, my work caring for those dying of cancer at home was suddenly overwhelmed by people dying from a new mutant virus that appeared from nowhere, having jumped from animals into humans.  It was spreading fast, created massive fear and panic, with no vaccine or cure, and that virus has since killed 35 million people.

Over 30 years later, despite vast research efforts we still have no vaccine nor a cure.  

That virus was HIV, causing AIDS.  

And through the Foundation ACET (AIDS Care Education and Training) that begin in our own home in 1987, my wife and I are still involved in global efforts to slow down spread of that particular virus, and to mitigate its impact on the poorest and most vulnerable communities in nations such as Uganda, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, DR Congo, Thailand and India.

So I have always worried that we would see more mutant viruses appear from nowhere and go global.

Energy as a national security strategy – added incentives to build a carbon zero world 

What is the outlook for the energy industry for the next decade?  I have advised many of the largest green energy companies and traditional energy companies on the future. 

In “The Future of Almost Everything” published in 2019, I warned that unstable prices would create a lot of chaos in future for energy companies, and I was right. 

Energy forecasts always have to be seen in the context of the global economy, geopolitics, technology, innovation, urbanisation, migration and social transformation. 

I wrote in 2019 that we would be likely to see unstable oil prices with all kinds of supply and demand shocks, and prices ranging from above $180 to below $40. Just so. 

And I also wrote that these price convulsions would drive many green energy companies out of business, which is what is already happening. 

Every time energy prices fluctuate wildly, investors get scared about longer term value. 

Yet in many ways, despite recent shocks, the fundamentals of successful logistics and supply chain management are still changing relatively slowly. 

For example, before COVID, moving a container 150km by lorry from Birmingham to Southampton cost the same as moving the same container 10,000km by sea from Southampton to Beijing. It is cheaper to transport melons from Istanbul to Naples than to drive melons from a village up in the Italian mountains, to the same market.  This overwhelmingly huge difference in sea freight costs compared to roads will be one of the single greatest drivers of future global trade, over the next 30-50 years, despite increased energy costs. It is the primary reason why global trade has grown at twice the rate of global production over the last 30 years.

Now of course, we had huge supply and demand shocks during the COVID crisis, made worse by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, with prices for a typical container journey rocketing from $800 to over $9000 in a few weeks.  These are short term issues, and market forces will bring these costs right down towards normal - simply because there is so much profit to be made by shippers at much higher costs, which means more investment, more competition.

Look out for trade growth in Latin America and Africa – both of which have huge manufacturing potential close to the sea. Areas with major container ports will on average grow up to 40% faster over the next three decades than cities, regions or nations that are landlocked.

Expect over $28 trillion a year of global trade by 2030, up from more than $18 trillion in 2019. Global trade will continue to grow around 25-35% faster on average than the entire global economy. For two decades, the use of shipping containers grew twice as fast as international trade, as companies seized the opportunity to be more efficient. But the container revolution is now complete, and so the growth difference will ease.

What is the future of flying taxis?  Many are asking questions relating to Urban Air Mobility, flying vehicles, electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft and so on. Over more than two decades I have made many accurate predictions about the aviation industry - see elsewhere on this site.  And I have advised many global aviation companies including giants such as Airbus, Dassault Falcon and several airlines.  

More than 250 companies around the world are now investing in next-generation, low-cost, electric powered flying taxis. Most Urban Air Mobility companies are small startups that you have never heard of, while the largest aircraft manufacture are also innovating in this area. The top ten UAM startups have received over $6bn in funding over the last 5 years, with successful test flights over more than 150kms between charges.