Governance

205 Items

President-elect Joe Biden and his climate envoy, John Kerry, at The Queen theater.

Carolyn Kaster/AP

Analysis & Opinions - Bloomberg Opinion

What Does Success Look Like for a Climate Czar?

| Dec. 02, 2020

President-elect Joe Biden’s decision to create a new cabinet-level position for climate-related issues — and to choose so prominent a figure as former Secretary of State John Kerry to fill it — demonstrates Biden’s sincerity over putting climate at the very center of U.S. foreign policy. It is easy to understate the importance of this appointment, given the flurry of czars created by most new administrations.

Audio - Harvard Environmental Economics Program

How the 2020 US Election May Impact Climate Policy: A Conversation with Coral Davenport

| Nov. 19, 2020

New York Times reporter Coral Davenport shared her thoughts on how climate policy — both domestically and internationally — may be impacted by the outcome of this month’s U.S. elections in the latest episode of “Environmental Insights: Discussions on Policy and Practice from the Harvard Environmental Economics Program."

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Analysis & Opinions - Bloomberg Opinion

After Oil: Throwing Money at Green Energy Isn’t Enough

| Sep. 17, 2020

The geopolitical and geo-economic forces wrought by the coronavirus pandemic, as examined previously in this series, are likely to slow the transition to a more sustainable global energy mix. Fortunately, the pandemic has also resulted in governments gaining vastly greater influence over whether this shift stalls or accelerates.

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Analysis & Opinions - Bloomberg Opinion

Pandemic Is Hurting, Not Helping, Green Energy

| Sep. 16, 2020

For most people, there was nothing to celebrate when the International Monetary Fund downgraded its outlook for global economic growth in June, anticipating a contraction of 4.9% for 2020. Yet for others, such as the small but persistent group of economists and others known as the degrowth movement,” the Covid-induced economic slowdown has a silver lining.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks during a press briefing at the State Department on Wednesday, May 20, 2020, in Washington.

Nicholas Kamm/Pool Photo via AP

Analysis & Opinions - The Washington Post

Pompeo’s ‘Madison Dinners’ Aren’t Scandalous. I Went to One.

| May 26, 2020

When assessing the Trump administration, let’s make sure that our outrage meters are well-calibrated, so that we don’t waste time on trivial topics. A case in point is the recent uproar over the “Madison Dinners” held by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his wife, Susan.

A photo of the Bundesverfassungsgericht ("Federal Constitutional Court") in Karlsruhe, Germany.

Flickr/Al Fed

Policy Brief

Pushing the EU to a Hamiltonian Moment: Germany’s Court Ruling and the Need to Build a Fiscal Capacity Force a Constitutional Debate

May 20, 2020

The recent ruling of the German Constitutional Court on the ECB was an economic and political bombshell. The deep controversy that resulted – within Germany and on a European scale – illustrates that the ambiguity surrounding the euro area’s legal order and architecture may have reached its limit.

Oxford Street in London, the UK’s busiest shopping street, lays empty.

Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Analysis & Opinions - The Guardian

How to Avoid a W-shaped Global Coronavirus Recession

| May 04, 2020

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” George Santayana famously quipped in 1905. It is a phrase that has been repeated for over a century, but rarely heeded. As Covid-19 decimates the global economy, our understanding of history could be the difference between a V- or U-shaped recession and a W-shaped one, in which incipient recovery is followed by successive relapses.

As recently as March, V-shaped recoveries in individual economies seemed plausible. Once infections and deaths had peaked and begun to decline, the logic went, people would eagerly return to work. The economic activity might even get an extra boost, as consumers released pent-up demand.