highlighting $57 billion and companies around net zero than ever before. joining me now is dr christine gulbranson, founder and ceo, of nova global ventures — a technology fund. dr gulbranson is at the summit bringing together future climate innovators with investors. why has been a fall in global funding green tech companies? there has been a fall globally with all sectors. an overall investment fall. but i think it is starting to pick up again. iam not pick up again. i am not sure if you are having sound issues they are, but we will dry and keep going. what does this fall in investment mean for green tech companies, for those trying to innovate, for entrepreneurs in the sustainability sector? it is the best time to keep going. and you have to innovate. and the world will catch up. the investments will increase... we are having sound issues. apologies for that. thank you for being with us. to markets now with the price of gold and bitcoin both raising eyebrows for the week ahead. with gold prices hitting record highs and the value of a bitcoin climbing to over $40,000 for the first time this year. let's speak now to bill blain, market strategist at shard capital. the gold thing, global uncertainty we are having now, also people are getting nervous about interest rates to borrow in the global markets. that interest rate has shot up. it is making people increasingly concerned that that interest rate is not sustainable. bitcoin is a different story. when is gold historically it has always moved higher as a safety net, as the safe haven investment, bitcoin isjust about persuading people that it is worth whatever it is worth. there is no real backing to bitcoin, except that it tries to sell itself on the same basis as gold. there have been a number of controversies around bitcoin this year, high—profile scandals, collapse of exchanges and platforms. hasn't bounced back from all that? what happens as bitcoin tries to sell itself on the basis that it is digital gold, and you can do everything with bitcoin that you could do with gold. but the thing is, historically people always invest in gold. it has been very good inflation age. when you get inflation, value of your savings collapses, the value of the bond portfolio that your pensions are invested in collapses. but gold tends to be a good inflation hedge. 0ver tends to be a good inflation hedge. over time the value of gold tends to move up in line with markets. but bitcoin isjust move up in line with markets. but bitcoin is just about pretending that it bitcoin is just about pretending thatitis bitcoin is just about pretending that it is an exchange. you cannot walk in and use bitcoin easily to do anything. it is so volatile you cannot really use it as a hedge. as you said, the number of scandals we have seen this yearjust makes it pretty much an investable for anyone serious about creating long—term value. they might be worth a0 today, it could be worth 20 tomorrow, who knows. what is behind this value going up so significantly. it is what is behind this value going up so significantly.— so significantly. it is because of this fear is _ so significantly. it is because of this fear is that _ so significantly. it is because of this fear is that nations, - this fear is that nations, particularly the us, and also in europe and the uk, now have such large debt balances, where they have been borrowing money to pay through the pandemics and to sustain economies following post global financial crisis in 2008, as a result all these countries have substantially more debt. most of the debt outstanding in the uk, about one third of it in total, was issued during the pandemic, when interest rates were effectively zero. and it will be 12 years before all that debt is repaid. but of course if you are paying it off with zero interest rates, it is not really a problem. but if you are borrowing money today it is costing a%, 5%, that is making international investors nervous. the thing is, countries like the uk and the us, they can always print money to repay their debts. but that has consequences. but it shouldn't be a major problem. what has happened with bitcoin is that bitcoin publicists are seeing, our currency is so much better because we are not belaboured by this high cost of debt. but as we all know, there is nothing that you can do with bitcoin, that you can't already do with a bank account or gold. i recently offered on my financial commentary website, the morning porridge, the last five years, and offer that if anyone can tell me anything that you can't already do better with bitcoin i will give them £100. no one has ever given me any good answer of anything legal that you could do with bitcoin that you can't already do. there are many people willing to take you up on that. thank you. to hong kong now where a court has granted evergrande more time to come up with a restructuring plan, adjourning a liquidation hearing until the end of january. the company is the world's most indebted property developer — and it's lawyers told the court with five more weeks it could "refine" its restructuring proposal. joao da silva has the details. it does seem like evergrande again managed to avert the worst case scenario, at least for now. it's the seventh time. a decision on this liquidation petition in hong kong has been adjourned. still, it must be said that today's outcome came as somewhat of a surprise. thejudge in this case had previously said that today was evergrande's ultimate deadline and that she was ready to get independent liquidators to deal with the property giant. but in the end, she gave evergrande more time. that's precisely what today's adjournment does. it gives the company a few more weeks to try to hammer out a repayment plan that's palatable to its foreign creditors. evergrande has been working on this for almost two years, but the plan ran into difficulties when, just months ago its founder was confirmed to be under investigation for suspected criminal activities in china. we know that after that, the property giant has scrambled to come up with a revised repayment plan. and from what was said in today's hearing, it does seem like most of its foreign creditors are on board with such efforts, or at least are not actively seeking an immediate liquidation of evergrande assets. so for now, evergrande lives to see another day. but it must be said its financial situation has not improved. it remains highly precarious and so does the situation of its domestic and foreign creditors, as well as the many homeowners in china whose properties remain unfinished. india is seeing a boom in luxury spending and that's helped car—makers like germany's mercedes—benz clock up strong sales in the country. the boss of mercedes india told the bbc�*s nikhil inamdar about his company's performance in asia's third largest economy. again hope to end this year on a record high. this should be the best ever year for mercedes—benz india in our history of last 30, almost 30 years in india. it's a combination of multiple factors. to start with, i would say demographic shift. there is a lot of younger customers now today. they have studied abroad in different parts of the world. when they come back, they want to now continue consuming luxury. you know, the woman buyers in our portfolio, we used to have around 8% pre—pandemic and now it's close to 15% of mercedes—benz are bought by women. the second biggest trigger is also the economic factor behind, because what we have seen post gst, which is one uniform tax across india and the demonetisation, a lot of money is now declared as income and legit, which also means that consumers, they are able to apply for loans, they are able to splurge. so, while you are not exporting out of india and what's your strategy of using your india production hub from a global standpoint? the indian operations and the indian plant is catered for the indian market as such. 0n the other side, the enablement for exports is also ftas and free trade agreements that one should be in place and india is now signing up a couple of them. but there is still more in the pipeline for us. being a german company based out of europe, the european fta is for sure one big thing that we are looking keenly and observing. so those reports suggest that tesla's entry into india is going to be imminent. government is wooing them with concessions, reportedly. how are you viewing this? in terms of concessions i think on one side, free trade is welcome because the government is discussing about can that happen. that's what we read in the press reports. so our view has always been that it should be a level playing field for any new entrant or for the local. we have invested now for more than 30 years with this plant here. so it should be a level playing field when it comes to investments, criteria and stuff. but we have to wait for it. cars are becoming more and more intelligent. there's increased use of new technologies like artificial intelligence. how important is india from a technology and r&d perspective in terms of getting some of these elements in place? i think we are proud to have the largest r&d setup outside of germany, in india, a lot of work on many of these topics, including developing the new operating system happens from bangalore. we have close to 10,000 people working on this topic. where do you think india stands in the global scheme of things for mercedes—benz and how do you think that will shift in the next decade? i had more than three former board members coming this year to visit the market to get a sense of the market. this has never, ever happened in the past, in a single year with so many visits. so that shows there is a lot of interest. in other news... the world's largest music streaming platform spotify has announced it will reduce the number of its employees by around i7%, that's around 1,500 jobs. spotify�*s ceo said he was taking what he called substantial action because of the gap between the company's financial goals and its operational costs. in germany a number of traditional christmas markets are taking place without music after operators complained of what they called excessive demands for royalties. some organisers said they'd been asked to pay six times more than usual. the organisation collecting royalties on behalf of composers and lyricists has denied increasing rates. don't forget you can get in touch with me online. i'm @samanthatvnews. hello from the bbc sport centre. a blow for the commonwealth games — the gold coast in australia, has withdrawn it's bid to host the next event in 2026. 0rganisers have said they may have to postpone or cancel the games in three years' time. the gold coast hosted the 2018 commonwealths, and mayor tom tate had insisted they could do it again after the australian state of victoria had pulled out due to cost concerns. but he's failed to convince federal and state governments to support the event and says australia will now be known as "a place "that reneges on a global sports contract", leaving its reputation "in tatters". the news comes after the only contender to host the 2030 games — the canadian province of alberta — also abandoned its plans. this has been the longest saga for no results. this has been trying to get a new host for the commonwealth games after victoria injuly decided it was not going to be the host. still we are back to that same point. no horse for the commonwealth games. it does sound justifiable,