Showing 101 - 110 of 360
Asia must seize energy opportunity
News, Published on 21/11/2022
» A year ago, following US President Joe Biden's election win, multilateralism once again became the beating heart of global climate action. G20 leaders agreed to more ambitious near-term climate targets en route to achieving net-zero emissions by mid-century, and they committed to ending inefficient fossil-fuel subsidies and cooperating on clean energy deployment to phase out coal more quickly.
It's the energy system, stupid
Oped, Published on 17/11/2022
» Ordinary people around the world are suffering from two massive, overlapping problems: surging living costs and the fallout from a rapidly warming climate. In the Horn of Africa, 22 million people are at risk of starvation, owing to the failure of four consecutive rainy seasons and soaring global grain prices.
Nuclear power is not the answer in the real world
Oped, Published on 17/11/2022
» Just as Russia's invasion of Ukraine has highlighted Europe's dangerous dependence on fossil fuels, increasingly frequent and intense climate-driven weather events are highlighting the death and destruction that fossil-fuel dependence has wrought.
The next global resource crisis will be over minerals
Oped, Published on 15/11/2022
» The West's dependence on China for so-called critical minerals once worried only a handful of experts and policy wonks. Now, the anxiety has gone mainstream, capturing headlines and becoming the subject of a BBC documentary series. But we have yet to answer adequately the most important question: What should we do about it?
Will the Cop27 meet bring dread or hope?
News, Published on 14/11/2022
» Ask two different climate experts at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Egypt (Cop27) to characterise their feelings about the future, and you may get quite different answers. "We are seeing more progress than we ever imagined," says one, while the other laments that we are heading full tilt like lemmings over the cliff. They can't both be right, can they?
Global accord not necessary in climate battle
Oped, Published on 12/11/2022
» This week's United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) in Egypt highlights the growing consensus that multilateral cooperation is necessary to avert environmental catastrophe. But with geopolitical tensions spiking and the US-China rivalry heating up, such efforts seem doomed to fail, much like previous efforts to promote global coordination on vaccines, trade, technological innovation, and macroeconomic policy.
Apec's geopolitics and geoeconomics
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 11/11/2022
» The upcoming leaders' meeting in Bangkok among the 21 member economies of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) should be seen in conjunction with its preceding Asean-related summits in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh and the G20 summit in Bali, the Indonesian island resort. This one-two-three combination in three Southeast Asian countries over a ten-day period is supposed to showcase Asean's central role in the promotion of peace, security and prosperity in the region and the wider world. But as Asean's summit season gets underway in Cambodia, excitement and promise have given way to anxieties and apprehensions. While these summit talks are an extraordinary opportunity to tone down geopolitical temperatures and geoeconomic competition, they are likely to yield mixed results.
Global population to hit 8 billion
Oped, Published on 10/11/2022
» The world's population will reach 8 billion in the middle of November -- a testament to scientific breakthroughs and improvements in nutrition, public health and sanitation. But as our human family grows larger, it is also growing more divided.
The West needs an energy alliance
Oped, Published on 03/11/2022
» The old line that "history does not repeat itself, but often rhymes", is an apt description of the evolving relationship between the West and its rivals. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union was a global superpower, owing to its military prowess. Today, Russia's armed forces appear to be in a dismal state, but the country has become an energy superpower that can use its vast natural-gas reserves as a weapon. Similarly, today's standoff between the West and Russia over Ukraine echoes the Cold War confrontation between authoritarianism and democracy.
Resetting Asean's climate agenda
Oped, Published on 01/11/2022
» High inflation, rising interest rates, falling currencies and volatile energy prices, together with an economic slowdown and post-pandemic budget woes, may increase pressure on the Asean+3 -- the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, together with China, Japan and South Korea -- to scale back efforts to mitigate climate risk.