The COVID-19 outbreak seems to have raised the odds of a global recession dramatically. But even if no downturn materializes in the near term, the outbreak, together with US President Donald Trump’s trade policy, may herald the end of the era when steadily rising international trade buttressed global peace and prosperity. Project Syndicate
For decades, economists have been wrestling with how best to weigh the current cost of emissions reductions against costs that will come years or even centuries from now. But a consensus has proved to be elusive, because traditional economic models don’t treat atmospheric carbon like an asset. Project Syndicate
Republicans used the pretense that they cared about fiscal responsibility to engage in de facto economic sabotage as long as a Democrat was in the White House. Then they abandoned the pretense and opened up the spending taps as soon as one of their own was in power. And far from paying a price for their duplicity, they are being politically rewarded. New York Times
Denmark gave permission on Wednesday for a natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany to pass through waters in its exclusive economic zone, meaning that the project, Nord Stream 2, can be completed despite sharp criticism from the United States, Ukraine and Poland. With nearly all of its 2,400 kilometers of pipe already laid, Nord Stream 2, wholly owned by Russia’s Gazprom, should be completed roughly on schedule early next year. It is actually a pair of pipelines, complementing a previous pair, Nord Stream 1, and will double capacity to 110 billion cubic meters, or about 3.9 trillion cubic feet.
A rollickingly well-written book, filled with fascinating, exciting and alarming stories about the impact of the oil and gas industry on the world today. While she is clearly animated by a concern about climate change, Maddow mostly describes the political consequences of an industry that has empowered some of the strangest people in the United States and the most unsavory ones abroad. New York Times
Few people in the West think about the ethics of buying fossil fuels from Vladimir Putin’s Russia Climate Home News
‘Most of the people in the world are poor, so if we knew the economics of being poor, we would know much of the economics that really matters.” (Schultz 1980) VOXEU
On the tenth anniversary of 1989, at the brink of the millennium, we could celebrate both the original triumph of the velvet revolutions and great subsequent progress. By the twentieth anniversary, in 2009, the countries of Central Europe had become members of both NATO and the EU, while political scientists described Hungary as a “consolidated democracy.” On this thirtieth anniversary, by contrast, the question that forces itself onto dismayed lips is “What went wrong?” The New York Review of Books
Russia was happy that global warming opened up Arctic oil, but the melting of permafrost poses a huge threat to its hydrocarbon heartlands. Bloomberg
In a widely circulated memo, the 200-member organization reversed itself, writing that “shareholder primacy” is no longer the sole purpose of a corporation. Instead, corporations must include a commitment to “all stakeholders,” which includes customers, employees, suppliers and local communities. Business Roundtable