Energy

Juliette Kayyem writes that deliberately accepting some risks, and then being prepared when disaster strikes, will serve human societies better than pretending that perfect safety is achievable. We cannot prevent an earthquake or a tsunami, but we have control over how much death and destruction it causes.

Professor Joseph Aldy says the incoming U.S. administration can breathe new life into global efforts against climate change, but faces daunting political and economic obstacles.

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.

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."

Stephan Walt writes that Trump's foreign-policy instincts might be more sound—but he has forfeited the chance to lead.

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.

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.

The search for silver linings to the coronavirus pandemic has come up woefully short. But one hopeful — and much talked of — prospect is that the disruption will accelerate the global shift to a more sustainable energy future.

But if President Trump doesn’t overcome his go-it-alone mind-set and take immediate steps to mobilize a global coalition to combat the Covid-19 pandemic, its spread will cause a catastrophic loss of life and make it impossible to restore normalcy in the United States in the foreseeable future.

The world is now in the midst of a once-in-a-century global health pandemic that threatens the lives and livelihoods of billions. This coronavirus transcends borders and nationalities, and until a vaccine is found, a cluster of cases in any one country will endanger the health and safety of people everywhere. For this reason, there has rarely been a time in which the fates of the world's nations were so clearly linked and where American leadership and purposeful international coordination were so urgently required.