this is bbc news, the headlines western leaders put forward a unified front in their support for ukraine. a meeting of g7 foreign ministers in germany agreed to tighten sanctions against moscow and quickly provide more weapons to kyiv. it's almost a year since russia invaded ukraine. the british prime minister, rishi sunak, has met with european commission president, ursula von der leyen, about the post—brexit trading arrangements for northern ireland. he said good progress has been made. rescue teams have pulled out three people from under a collapsed building in turkey — almost two weeks after the earthquakes there and in syria. the death toll is now more than 16,000 — with millions left homeless. coach passengers returning to the uk from france face delays at calais of up to six and a half hours.

border force staff at several ports, including calais, are on the second day of a 4 day strike about pay. you are watching bbc news. now — talking business lets ta ke lets take a look on the show. on the show, the windfalls of war, $200 billion, total amount of profit last year alone by the world's major oil companies. president biden and other world leaders are accusing the oil companies of war profiteering at a time of a cost of living crisis not seen in a generation. instead of reaping the cash and paying much of it out to shareholders, should big oil be pumping it back into exploration, or even into the great

energy transition? i will be discussing all of that with these two. president of energy policy research foundation, and senior director of campaigns for the sierra club. also, clothes, food, tv, much of the energy that you use, all brought to you by a ship. i will be taking the pulse of the industry with the big boss at the head of the world's biggest shipping company. whenever you are watching, hello and welcome to the show. 2022 was a tough year for the global economy, just as we began to see the green shoots of recovery from the covid pandemic, russian tanks rolled into ukraine throwing europe

into armed conflict for the first time in over two decades. it is a strategic hotspot, a country with close links to east and west, and a buffer zone between russia and its nato adversaries to the west. and because of western sanctions on russian oil and global oil prices soared to 170 bet $127 per barrel. that spurred stinging inflation worldwide. but all of that turned out to be good news for the big oil producers. last year each of the big five saw their profits at least doubled compared to the year before. it is an all—time record. but it certainly raised eyebrows in the white house. big oiljust reported record profits. last year they made $200 billion, in the midst of a global energy crisis. i think that is outrageous. they use the record profits to buy back their own stock,

rewarding ceos and shareholders. corporations ought to do the right thing. that is why i propose we could dribble tax on buy—back stock and encourage long—term investment. --quadrouple. critics say these profits are windfalls of war, but the share buy—backs have —— and pumped up the dividends have raised questions asked why they don't put money into renewable security. rather than hydrocarbons accounting for 85% of the energy mix as they do today, it will maybe be 40—60% of energy mix by the middle of the century. the successful oil and gas companies that survive through that period are going to be those that can diversify their portfolios so that they have a core of key oil and gas assets in their portfolio,

but are also able to bring their key skill set to be on a build—out of a more sustainable energy system, whether in renewable power, biofuels, carbon capture and storage, or an electric vehicle networks. it is flexibility, financial discipline, strong position in research and development. here are the big questions for big oil. how do theyjustify reaping record profits when hundreds of millions, if not billions of people, are struggling to heat their homes and fullup theircars? and are they investing enough and smart enough to secure their own survival to 2050 and beyond? let us get those answers from a man who is a big figure in the us oil industry and has been working on oil politics since the energy crisis of the early 1970s.

he is now president of energy policy retail foundation in washington. a pleasure having you on the show. oil prices have pretty much stabilised somewhere around 85 bucks per barrel in recent months butjust under one year ago it topped out at close to $130 per barrel. that resulted in huge profits for the oil companies. critics will say, including your president and other world leaders, it looks like war profiteering. how does the industry defend that? last year —— there are periods when industry makes a lot of money, there are periods when it loses money. nobody ever says, the oil industry is losing money, maybe we should give them money. i'm not sure war profiteering is a good comet. most of the oil industry, the price is set in the world market, the industry itself cannot lower the price, only thing it can do

is produce more oil. in recent weeks some of the big oil companies have been distributing these record profits to shareholders. what is driving them to do that, rather than investing more of it into green technologies, refineries, exploration? investors are demanding access to this capital and equity that they get their rate of return on their investment. it is not a bad way to reward investors through buy—backs, it is better than dividends, because dividends create the expectation that they will continue. part of what is going on here is the industry is reflecting the demands of the stockholders. you mention the difference between that is better to do buy—backs and payback dividends, but at least one of the big five is actually paying out more

in dividends back to shareholders than it is investing in renewables. some will say, is that short—sighted? possibly. but there is also a pure understanding of how difficult energy transition really is. transforming the world from where we are today, to a world of net to zero is a huge, costly and very risky effort. the markets in office saying, wait a minute, this is going to be quite difficult. here, bets people place on fuels of the future in renewables is kind of reflecting that reality. if we look ahead ten or 20 years, how well prepared as the industry for its own survival? growing pressure to shift away from fossil fuels and embrace green renewable energy.

over the next 30 years the world is going to need the addition of electric power, electrification. currently equivalent to what the entire 0ecd is using. in order to do that, secure renewable fuel set, we are going to have to have massive additions of solar, wind, land requirements probably exceeding just for a wound alone, the entire state of texas. ——wind alone. solar power, the equivalent to the entire landmass of california. all of that places tremendous cost risks and technology constraints. we are not even going to be able to get the critical materials, minerals, lithium,

for electric vehicles. and by the way, the non—0ecd is just not going to do it. they are not buying that we are selling. you might have the main people in denmark who are net zero, but in indonesia there are 300 million people there, it is hot, the old air conditioning. ——they all want. let me end on this. the international energy agency says burning oil drives about a third of global emissions. how do we justify our ongoing reliance on oil while we have the fears of a climate change which are looming so large of the planet? why do we rely on oil? it has a lot of features that people like. it is highly dense. it is portable. it can be moved around. it is available on demand. all those features make the transition quite difficult. there is no magic bullet,

we can move to these technologies, but with them also, technological and environmental problems. take the volkswagen, all—electric volkswagen, according to estimates by volkswagen itself look at how these vehicles are used, it takes 70,000 to 80,000 miles before they achieve a net reduction in carbon. probably have to spend a lot more money on research and development, we have to have a very serious discussion on adaptation, versus mitigation, and come with a more pragmatic approach. otherwise we are likely to face a lot of failure nodes which are quite damaging to our national economy and worldwide. on that note, a real pleasure having you on the show. thank you for your time. i will talk to you soon.

thank you so much. there is still a place for oil in the energy mix of the future, but are they doing enough to work towards a more sustainable future? i've been catching up with an energy campaigner who has been raising some of these important questions. she is head of energy campaigns at the sierra club, an environmental group in united states. a pleasure having you on the show. it has been a tumultuous period these last couple of years, covid, the horrendous war in ukraine, between them they had a big effect on the global economy, high inflation driven by those high energy prices. do you welcome high oil prices simply as a way to dampen demand? no. high oil prices mean that families that are already struggling with high inflation and cost of living are further struggling to put gas in their cars, and we need to see the oil companies investing in a transition that will truly be an affordable one

for families and households. 0ne reliant on clean energy and one that doesn't continue expansion of fossil fuels. those high prices have brought in enormous profits for big oil. what is your message to those oil companies gushed about how should they be allocating these profits nowadays? these are windfall profits that they made off of war profiteering. the oil companies have known for decades that their business model, at their core business model, is exacerbating the climate crisis, which means we are seeing severe weather, fires and droughts and storms and flooding, depending on where you live. what that means is that if they continue to invest in expansion of oil and gas that we will only have more hardships for our families. instead, they have a role to play

in getting our energy economy into the 21st economy by accelerating the transition to green energy. most people would rather see the long—term energy transition to clean energy, that is what they could be to miss those investments instead. how do you react when you hear that some cabbies are paying more money back to shareholders than the money they are investing in renewables. some might suggest it is short—sighted? ——some companies. it is short—sighted, outrageous, and a poor business model. the oil industry would be wise to get on—board with energy and invest into new fields, they have known for decades that their core business model is exacerbating the climate crisis, causing pollution and harm in many communities. what role do think the world's fossil fuel producers have

in navigating towards a post—oilfuture? some may say, is it really their responsibility? it is the role of the financial industry primarily right now to be putting capital towards clean energy solutions and investment in solar, wind, electric vehicles, heat pumps, and to power clean energy economy. you have seen many of the banks or asset managers make the commitment to net zeros, commitments to huge ambitious climate pledges, and in order to realise that they need to be stopping investments in the oil majors who are expanding still oil and gas drilling, and instead investing in clean energy. that is where a lot of the responsibility lies, in the financial sector, and i think it will pay off in the long run, and even in the short run. the oil companies should be planning

for this transition. let me end on this, even if every country were to cease using oil as a fossil fuel tomorrow, it will still be needed for petrochemical production, for the likes of insulation, pharmaceuticals, plastics etc. the international energy agency says about i2% of oil demand is driven by petrochemical production. that percentage is only going to grow. do you see that ongoing demand is a problem? when your document at petrochemicals you are talking that some things that are real staple, but you're also talking growing a demand for petrochemicals that go into single—use plastics, or throwaway water bottles, or increasing unnecessary plastic packaging for our household goods. i don't think that's a smart choice economically orfor our communities, or water, air, or climate.

there are many more ways they could go about transitioning off of fossil fuels and off of oil in order to have a stake in the future for our families. a real pleasure having you on the show, thank you for your time. thank you. some of the world's biggest cargo ships carry tens of thousands of containers all around the world, that is very attractive to pilots seeking a big payday. ——pirates. how do the big shippers manage that risk? since we have been talking a lot about oil, he is a fact. global shipping burned 300 million tonnes of oil every year, that swallows up 5% of the world's total. what are they doing to change tack? i've been catching up with the big boss of maersk which operates over 700 ships. that is the biggest feet on the planet. ——fleet. a pleasure having you on the show.

where to start the current picture of shipping. we all know about the supply chain chaos. the price to fill a standard container and soared from $2,000 to over $12,000. we had containers in the wrong part of the world, perhaps sitting empty in china, when they were needed in united states. basically, when i reacted the rest of back art way back to some sort of normality? you could see that we have returned to something that looks a lot more like normal. what is not finished yet is the fact that the learnings about everything that led to this pandemic disruption, learning from this and making the fundamental changes that will be necessary to prevent that from happening, or to mitigate the impact of having something like this, how we can manage this, as are something we still haven't thought about. the global economy is not a pretty picture. you have said recently that you expect a drop in the number of containers needed to ship

all our goods around the world, that will result in your profits dropping by 75%. that is a staggering number. that is correct. there are two things. one is the volume aspect, the other is the price aspect. we are coming down 75% because the prices that we have seen, dominating prices in 2021 and 2022, our prices we have never seen before, and profits could be the norm in the industry operates on. we always always knew that was a temporary effect, linked to congestion, and different disruptions, as this is abating then you see the price is normalising. this normalisation of prices, when you see such a large delta on the prices, this is having a very significant impact. before the russian invasion in ukraine, apparently one in three containers that was sitting

in russia belonged to you, 23. how difficult was it to extract those containers? the decision that we took to exit russia as a consequence of the invasion of ukraine was a decision we quite rapidly. we are very strong believers in openness, free trade, in a world where countries don't invade each other. we have significant investments in russia in terms of infrastructure, warehouses, ports. we decided to exit ports. that was a decision. the decision made it relatively easy and fast. the execution of that decision actually took quite a few months to do. we are getting close now to the final stage the last few bits that we need to finalise. but it is said and it's quite complicated to do. let us talk about the reopening of

the great exporter, that is china. that reopening has come hundreds of millions of chinese coming covid, that means less productivity for its factories, is port workers, how is that impacting maersk? productivity is not at the same level as pre—pandemic, but it has rebounded significantly, and is close to those levels, but the ability of the chinese have to manufacture the goods are tidied to get their move to the ports, then get them transported where need to go, this is restored at this stage. what we are left with is consumers, one of the largest consuming markets in the world, coming out of a very pronounced isolation. what could be the macroeconomic upside for 2023, it is consuming demand in china as they catch up with some of the experiences and consumption that they haven't

had in the last couple of years. i want to ask you at the dangers of piracy. many of us know about the hijacking of maersk alabama in 2009, that is made into a film. even in the past couple of years you have had attempted attacks. how big of a problem as piracy today? it used to be an issue off somalia in east africa. today, some of the instance we have had a not so much on the eastern coast of africa, mostly in the gulf of guinea, near nigeria, we have had different incidents in the last couple of years that we had to deal with. the difference with the gulf of guinea, this is not a well travelled trade route where you just

sail by, most of the ships being attacked are ships that are servicing this local economy, servicing nigeria and other countries there. the option to seal a different route is not there. yes, obviously when you are engaged into having ships sail all around the world, safety of the crew is something we are concerned about. these attacks of piracy, as the movie illustrates, is something for you have your people on the ship being in real danger. this is maersk alabama, . we are an unarmed trader. it's preoccupying for us, we are engaging with governments in africa and in europe and in united states to make sure that safe trade routes, safety of the changes can be guaranteed. do your crews get a higher pay taking those riskier roots? no, they do not.

let's talk about shipping emissions, compared to energy needed to move goods by plane or track, shipping is far less damaging in terms of greenhouse gases, but he is your problem, the shipping industry is so big, so collectively if you added shipping to the list of the rope was my most polluting countries, it would be something like the sixth most putting mission on the planet. that is not a good look. what are you doing to not be a part of that problem? let me start with a complete admission that the fact that you just brought they are correct. we have been part of the problem. we have a role to play, a leading role to play in the part of the solution here. we started by announcing that would be carbon free by 2050. in the course of last year we shortened to wind up that it would take us to achieve these goals, from 2050 to 2040. it gives us a good 17, 18 years for us to achieve this. it is about the time that we need to renew the fleet. the ships that we have have any comic life of about 25 years.

if you have 18 years to do it the order ships that are compliant, most of your fleet will be renewed on a new type of energy by the time of 2040. the typical seafarer, those that work on the ships, typically male, typically filipino male, filipinos make up about a third of the site at sea, but only 2% of ship workers are women. that is a dismal rate for your industry. what are you doing to attract more women, and how do you do it? that is a good question. 2% is a really abysmal rate. if you want to change this you need to take not only a passive few on let us hire those that want to apply, but also engage with institutions, marine academies, job fairs, to show what the potential of such a kid here has, not only for men, but also for women. —— the potential of such a career has.

last year, in india, we were able to hire ten times more women in 2022, and in 2021, because risk a more proactive stance, and selling this as a career was attractive. on that point, the big boss of maersk, thank you for being on the show. thank you. that is all for now. you can keep up to the latest on our global economy on the website, you can follow me on twitter. thank you for watching. goodbye.

hello, it's been cloudy, mild, a bit down the grass and part of the country today, we will see the wetter weather than we have seen across scotland move away, many other part of the country will turn dry, if you breaks in the cloud, especially across north scotland, some icy patches here. potentially those damages could be close to freezing. 0therwise those damages could be close to freezing. otherwise the temperatures around 7 or 8 degrees. the winds will be stronger tomorrow in scotland, we will see more cloud coming in, some rain initially in the north—west, some rain at times continues to affect northern scotland coming a little heavy too. eight generally cloudy day but dry day across northern parts and further south more sunshine than today across southern england and wales. breezy today, still on the

mild side, 11—13. we start the new week on a mild note as well, middle part of next week we will start to see a bit of rain coming in and then as we head later on into next week the wind direction changes and it gets chillier.

this is bbc news. i'm samantha simmonds. our top stories: western leaders put forward a unified front in their support for ukraine, days before the first anniversary of the russian invasion, but britain's prime minister says the country needs more support. ukraine needs more artillery, armoured vehicles and air defence, so now is the moment to double down on our military support. as the death toll from the earthquakes in turkey and syria rises above 46,000, nearly two weeks on, rescue teams pull three people alive from a collapsed building. video of a female iranian engineer throwing off her hijab at a public meeting goes viral. and we find out how finland has become the global hub of the 120 billion—dollar

gaming industry.