Tag: Global Warming

For the Climate, Biden Must Be More Aggressive in Ending New Truck and Bus Emissions

Chin@Strategy

At a gathering on the White House lawn last August, President Biden spoke of a future in which electric cars and trucks will be the only vehicles on the road. “The question,” he said, “is whether we’ll lead or fall behind” in the global race to achieve that vision. Mr. Biden has been vigorous in pushing for the end of the internal combustion engine for cars and light trucks. In August he signed an executive order that called on the federal government to do all it can to ensure that…

U.S. Effort to Combat Forced Labor Targets Corporate China Ties

Chin@Strategy

A far-reaching bill aimed at barring products made with forced labor in China became law after President Biden signed the bill on Thursday. But the next four months — during which the Biden administration will convene hearings to investigate how pervasive forced labor is and what to do about it — will be crucial in determining how far the legislation goes in altering the behavior of companies that source products from China. While it is against U.S. law to knowingly import goods made with slave labor, the Uyghur Forced Labor…

How the U.S. Lost Ground to China in the Contest for Clean Energy

Chin@Strategy

WASHINGTON — Tom Perriello saw it coming but could do nothing to stop it. André Kapanga too. Despite urgent emails, phone calls and personal pleas, they watched helplessly as a company backed by the Chinese government took ownership from the Americans of one of the world’s largest cobalt mines. It was 2016, and a deal had been struck by the Arizona-based mining giant Freeport-McMoRan to sell the site, located in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which now figures prominently in China’s grip on the global cobalt supply. The metal has…

What to Know About the Frantic Quest for Cobalt

Chin@Strategy

The clean energy revolution is replacing oil and gas with a new global force: the minerals and metals needed in electric car batteries, solar panels and other forms of renewable energy. Places like the Democratic Republic of Congo, which produces two-thirds of the world’s supply of cobalt, for example, are stepping into the kinds of roles once played by Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich nations. And a race between China and the United States to secure supplies could have far-reaching implications for the shared goal of protecting the planet. An…

The Biden Doctrine Won’t Win the 21st Century for Humanity

Chin@Strategy

The frameworks, paradigms and doctrines of that era, of any kind, are simply insufficient to meet the challenges of the 21st century. Bolder thinking is required, thinking that shifts away from states, whether great powers or lesser powers, democracies or autocracies. It is time to put people first, to see the world first as a planet of eight billion people rather than as an artificially constructed system of 195 countries and to measure all state actions in terms of their impact on people. Instead of competing with China today on…

With Methane and Forest Deals, Climate Summit Offers Hope After Gloomy Start

Chin@Strategy

GLASGOW — The world leaders gathered at a crucial climate summit secured new agreements on Tuesday to end deforestation and reduce emissions of the potent greenhouse gas methane, building momentum as the conference prepared to shift to a more grueling two weeks of negotiations on how to avert the planet’s catastrophic warming. Capping off two days of speeches and meetings, President Biden on Tuesday said the United States pledged to be a “partner” with vulnerable countries confronting climate change, while expressing confidence that his own domestic climate agenda is on…

What Is Going on With China is Not a ‘Cold War’

Chin@Strategy

A new idea is gaining currency among some politicians and policymakers in Washington: The United States is in a Cold War with China. It’s a bad idea — bad on history, bad on politics, bad for our future. The Biden administration has wisely pushed back on the framing. But the president’s actions suggest that his strategy for dealing with China may indeed suffer from Cold War thinking, which locks our minds into the traditional two-dimensional chess model. Competition with China, though, is a three-dimensional game. And if we continue to…

Governments Must Invest in Jobs in Green Economy, Ban Ki-moon Says.

Chin@Strategy

Global leaders must create jobs in the renewable energy sector so that the costs of transitioning from fossil fuels do not exacerbate economic inequalities, Ban Ki-moon, the former United Nations secretary general, said on Wednesday on the sidelines of the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow. “What is absolutely necessary at this time — it is critical now — is for governments to increase their ambition level, not only in clean energy, but creating millions of new green jobs for the people,” Mr. Ban, the U.N. leader from 2007 to 2016,…

3 Big Questions Looming Over the Glasgow Climate Talks

Chin@Strategy

This article is part of the Debatable newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Six years ago in Paris, world leaders celebrated a breakthrough in global climate politics: After more than two decades of failure, nearly every country finally agreed to reduce “as soon as possible” the amount of planet-warming greenhouse gases they were pumping into the atmosphere. Those leaders knew, though, that their pledges were woefully insufficient to avert disaster and would need to be ratcheted up at a later date. That is…

Global Leaders Pledge to End Deforestation by 2030

Chin@Strategy

Efforts to keep forests standing, nevertheless, have struggled. One effort, recognized in the Paris climate accord, seeks to pay forested nations for reducing tree loss, but progress has been disappointingly slow. Governments have made similar promises before, without making much progress in stemming the felling of forests for farming and commercial lumber. This year, scientists found that parts of the Amazon have begun emitting more carbon than they store. A United Nations plan announced in 2017 made similar commitments. An agreement in 2014 to end deforestation by 2030, the New…