Germany continues to be off track regarding many of its energy and climate targets according to the economy ministry’s latest progress report on the energy transition. In an accompanying opinion, government advisors lament that the report lacks concrete measures and ideas on how to implement the country’s landmark Energiewende project. Clean Energy Wire x
The world’s largest automakers warned President Trump on Thursday that one of his most sweeping deregulatory efforts — his plan to weaken tailpipe pollution standards — threatens to cut their profits and produce “untenable” instability in a crucial manufacturing sector. New York Times
President Trump’s latest swipe at Huawei could be the start of a deep transformation of the tech sector.Citing national security concerns, the Commerce Department said this month that American companies would need special permission to sell some products to Huawei and other Chinese companies. New York Times
Human activity has transformed the Earth – but scientists are divided about whether this is really a turning point in geological history. The Guardian
The Arctic is thawing, and China is seizing the chance to expand its influence in the north. For China, the retreating ice potentially offers two big prizes: new sources of energy and a faster shipping route across the top of the world. New York Times
President Trump’s attention on trade has largely been focused on China in recent weeks. But there’s a growing sense that he could soon turn his fight to Europe. The European trade commissioner, Cecilia Malmstrom, reportedly warned E.U. trade ministers that they “should brace” for U.S. tariffs on billions of euros worth of European goods over a dispute about Airbus subsidies. New York Times
The bond market is sending powerful signals that there’s economic trouble ahead for the United States economy. They’re powerful enough, in fact, that they’re even rattling the parts of Wall Street that people do talk about. New York Times
In the next few months, the White House will complete the rollback of the most significant federal effort to curb greenhouse-gas emissions, initiated during the Obama administration. It will expand its efforts to impose Mr. Trump’s hard-line views on other nations, building on his retreat from the Paris accord and his recent refusal to sign a communiqué to protect the rapidly melting Arctic region unless it was stripped of any references to climate change. New York Times
On May 15th America’s Commerce Department said that companies would need a special licence to deal with Huawei, China’s hardware giant, which it deemed a threat to American interests (it later said the order would not take full effect for 90 days). The Economist
Olivier Blanchard, a former chief economist of the IMF, told the annual meeting of the American Economic Association that there were many reasons to doubt the supposed costs of public debt. Since then Jason Furman and Larry Summers of Harvard University, both of whom advised Barack Obama on economics, have written in Foreign Affairs, a journal, that it is time to kill off the “debt obsession”. The Economist
© Stefan P. Schleicher 2019
