Struggling through COP25 Madrid; Girding for COP26 Glasgow

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The ‘Environmental Story’ doesn’t seem at the  moment to have a happy middle or end. But it is hard not to be drawn to the drama that is the global effort to reduce CO2 emissions.

Both Jennifer Allan and Matthew Hoffmann my guests for Summit Dialogue Episode 16 attended COP 25 in Madrid. So, I wanted to get a first-hand reflection on the meeting and the results achieved. I also wanted to get from them their own assessment of the state of efforts to reduce CO2 emissions. And last but certainly not least I wanted to discuss with Jennifer and Matt what is needed for the upcoming COP26 that is meeting in Glasgow five years after the successful conclusion of the Paris Climate Change Agreement. If the member states are not on track to lower CO2 emissions, as it appears to be, what can be done at COP26?

Jennifer Allan is a writer/editor at ‘Earth Negotiations Bulletin’ and a lecturer at Cardiff University. Matthew Hoffmann is a colleague at the University of Toronto and a Co-Director of the Environmental Governance Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto.

Come join us for the is podcast: ‘Summit Dialogue’, Episode 16: An Interview with Jennifer Allan and Matthew Hoffmann on the results of COP25 in Madrid and what is needed at COP26 in Glasgow in November 2020.

 

‘Shaking the Global Order’ – A Podcast with Thomas Wright from Brookings on the Crisis in US-Iran Relations

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wrightt_portraitSo to restart our Global Summitry podcast series for the new roaring ’20s  – the ‘Now’, the ‘Summit Dialogue’ and the ‘Shaking the Global Order’ series,  I had connected with my good colleague Tom Wright from Brookings. Tom is the director of the Center on the United States and Europe and a senior fellow in the Project on International Order and Strategy at the Brookings Institution. Tom has followed closely the ‘never ending tale’ of Brexit both from the perspective of the UK but also Ireland and the EU. And with the withdrawal legislation to be put before House of Commons by a newly elected and robust Conservative government of Boris Johnson, I though it would be good to review the relationship and where we could expect UK-EU relations to go.

But I had not calculated that the U.S. would take the action of killing Quds leader General Qasem Solemani. Tom has followed closely Trump foreign policy and he has been particularly acute in examining the sources that have motivated Trump in his foreign policy decisions.

I could not pass up, therefore, an opportunity to explore Trump’s motivations in taking such a major step – the killing of what is seen as the number 2 in Iran.  So please join Tom and I for this podcast – Episode 27 of ‘Shaking the Global Order: American Foreign policy in the Age of Trump.

And once you have absorbed all that Tom has to say on the Iran-U.S. crisis, then join Tom and I for Episode 17 in the ‘Now’ series  for an examination of Brexit in the aftermath of the UK election.

 

 

COP25: A Video Conversation with Matthew Hoffmann Continued: Examining the ‘Bottom Up’ Approach of the Paris Climate Change Agreement

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We were fortunate enough spend some additional time with Matthew Hoffmann, the Co-Director Environmental Governance Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto. Matt was on his way to COP25 in  Madrid. As he pointed out in this video conversation this year’s COP is really a lead in to hopefully enhanced commitments by states by COP26 which will be held in Glasgow in November 2020.

This additional conversation allowed me to ask Matt if he was still a strong proponent of “bottom up” approach of the Paris Climate Change Agreement in the face of the Emissions Gap Report that suggests that countries are failing to meet their emissions reduction targets.

 

Come watch!

Image Credit: en.wikipedia.or

COP25: A Video Conversation with Matthew Hoffmann on How Countries are Doing in Reaching Their Emission Goals

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COP25 in Madrid is upon us. To get a better understanding of where key emitters – the United States, China  and others are I sat down with Matthew Hoffmann at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto recently to talk about the climate change ‘state of play’.

Matt is a Professor of Political Science and he is also Co-Director of the Environmental Governance Lab with Professors Steven Bernstein and Teresa Kramarz. Matt will be attending COP25 but before his departure for Madrid I wanted to get his overview of the national efforts to meet their Nationally Determined Commitments (NDCs) and to hold the temperature to 2C or significantly below. The first of two video sessions is now up at the GSP Project YouTube GSP Channel. Catch him there.

 

 

 

A Podcast Interview – Ep 15 Global Summitry’s ‘Now’ Series with Sheri Berman

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We entered the virtual studio with Seri Berman to examine the crisis of democracy in Europe.  Sheri is a political scientist from Barnard College, Columbia University. She recently published with Oxford University Press, Democracy and Dictatorship: From the Ancien Regime to the Present Day. 

We were fortunate to have Sheri join us at recent roundtable at the APSA in Washington “The Strange Death – and Possible Rebirth – of the Liberal Order. There, Sheri added a great perspective on the rise of nationalism and populism in Europe, especially.

With that in mind I asked Sheri to join me in the Global Summitry’s ‘ virtual studio for a podcast – ‘Now’ Series, Ep. 15: An Interview with Sheri Berman on the Crisis of Democracy in Europe.  The podcast can be found at the Global Summitry site and can also be downloaded at iTunes and SoundCloud.

Come join us!

Between Chaos and Leadership – The Instance of the G7 Gathering in Biarritz, France

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As leaders now exit from the G7 meeting in Biarritz France, it is worth reflecting on the state of the Liberal Order. Or, maybe more appropriately, and at least for the moment, its state of ‘Disorder’.

It has been a chaotic preceding week, even by Donald Trump standards, I think. Trump sharply raised his attack on various allies –  most particularly last week, Denmark. Attacks on allies have become rather routine, though exceedingly troubling. But this particular episode was to see the least – startling. In this case Trump suggested that the United Sates might want to purchase Greenland. When President Trump was met by a strong statement of rejection by Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, that called the President’s suggestion, “absurd”, the President called her statement ‘nasty’ and then turned around and postponed a state visit to one of America’s closest and most faithful allies. It led my colleague Thomas Wright of Brookings to conclude in an article in The Atlantic :

The cancellation of Trump’s visit to Denmark is part of a disturbing pattern. Trump regularly beats up on and abuses America’s closest democratic allies while being sycophantic to autocrats.

Then there was the continuing trade war with China. Just before Trump was to leave for Europe and the G7, China announced that it was prepared to  raise tariffs on $US75 billion worth of American-made goods, including crude oil, cars and farm products, if Mr. Trump was to carry through with plans to tax an additional $300 billion worth of imports from China. In an angry tweet  in response, President Trump declared: “Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing our companies HOME and making your products in the USA.” Ordered! Yikes! After that Trump was ‘all over the map’ defending past statements such as ordering American companies to leave, then regretting the ratcheting up of tariffs only to have his officials suggest that he only wished he could raise the tariffs even higher. It could make one’s head spin.

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United States and its Course of Action With China – A Coming Podcast with Susan Thornton

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Errors have been made. And inconsistencies have occurred. But the current Trump policy toward China and its apparent encouragement  of a renewal of ‘the Cold War’ – in this instance with China – is simply stupefying. And very likely dangerous. As the Editorial Board of the Washington Post (WP) put it on August 6th:

Still, the risks are real, and Mr. Trump’s approach inspires no confidence that he has some strategic objective in mind, as opposed to the continuation of conflict with China for its own sake. We don’t expect the president to announce his negotiating goals in advance. He should, however, base policy on objective economics, not a general anti-China animus.

A low-level policy debate has  been encouraged in the WP pages and more broadly in the academic and policy publications.  Hopefully, the politicians – especially all those folk running for the Democratic nomination for President – have, or will pay attention to these debates and will respond in a thinking way to the destructive Trump policy.  There are a variety of views expressed in the WP – all worth considering.

The spark to this debate began with an open letter that was published in the WP Opinion section.  The ‘Scholars’ Statement ‘was published on July 3rd: “China is not the enemy”  M. Taylor Fravel, J. Stapleton Roy,  Michael D. Swaine , Susan A. Thornton and Ezra Vogel were the five principals that organized this statement on U.S.-China relations.  All  the principals are well known China hands, either academics or policy folk. After completing the Statement the principals then opened the opinion piece for signature and scholars and policy folk signed on. There were many signatories including an historian from Georgetown, James Millward . I mention him specifically because he critiqued the  Statement. And In his critique he identified a response to the Statement published on July 18th in The Journal Political Risk, titled “Stay the Course on China: An Open Letter to President Trump”. This Letter was penned by James Fanell, Captain USN (Retired), and former director of Intelligence & Information Operations U.S. Pacific Fleet.  This Letter too was opened to signature. As the title implied the Letter supported President Trump and the China actions his Administration has implemented: 

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Did the Osaka G20 Bring Global Governance Progress – Part Two

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So, the Vision 20 principals, Colin Bradford, Brookings, Yves Tiberghien, University of British Columbia and myself, at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy thought it would be valuable to take a second gaze at the G20 Osaka Summit. This look, of course, occurring following the conclusion of the Summit.

There is little question that the G20 was dominated by the Donald Trump’s ‘reality TV show’ – the meeting and joking with Putin, the dramatic meeting over tariffs with Xi Jinping. And, finally, but certainly not least, the dramatic ‘handshake summit’ with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un at the DMZ. In the end, there was little bandwidth left for any coverage of the collective meetings of the G20, or examination of the Leaders’ Declaration. The Oska G20 reflects the shape – read that as the fragmenting – of the Global Order. But the V20 principals thought to try and draw some conclusions where we could on the state of the order in this chaotic ‘Age of Trump’.

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Can the G20 Maintain Progress at Osaka in Global Governance – Part One

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Gathering for the G20 Osaka Summit

With this post RisingBRICSAM ‘returns to the air’. First up are the Vision 20 reflections on the impending G20 Osaka Summit. The Vision 20 principals include: Colin Bradford, Brookings, Yves Tiberghien, University of British Columbia and Alan Alexandroff, Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto.

As we have expressed in the past, “Our ‘Visioning the Future Project’ focuses on defining the future by building a new blueprint of values and organizing principles for the global system.” The V20 is committed to a well-defined goal: a new and better articulation of the relationships between global, national, and local levels. We also emphasize new avenues for dialogue across cultural, regional, and North-South divides to avoid
a downward cycle of mutual misperceptions. The V20 has urged, principally through the Blue Reports, that G20 Leaders reach out with far greater efforts and with accessible messages that can better speak to their own publics and work to assist their publics to understand the collaborative efforts these Leaders and their officials strive to achieve through the G20.

And now to our examination of the Osaka G20 Summit.

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‘Soldiering On’ – A Few Reflections from the T20s Gathering in Buenos Aires

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It was, is, a trying time for the Argentinian leadership. A striking and current economic crisis haunts the Macri government.  The peso has depreciated dramatically; interest rates have been boosted to 60 percent; and the current efforts by the Macri government to return the Argentinian economy to health – a policy of gradualism – lies in tatters. The government valiantly has returned to the IMF – hated by so many Argentinians for the institution’s policy ‘support’ in the early aughts in a former debt crisis – for a major infusion of funds.  And, oh yes, then there is the hosting of the G20. This is a government that appears to be distracted – and reasonably so – by the domestic economic crisis they face.

It is hard for this government to commit the ‘bandwidth’ required for hosting the G20.  Hosting is not just the host’s efforts to prepare for the leaders’ summit: fashioning the agenda and reaching consensus over a number of policy initiatives. It requires examining past agendas and bringing forward those policy efforts that can be advanced in the current year. It is also the various officials’ meetings at the cabinet level and below. The host needs to advance task force reports from ministers and international institutions and it requires coordinating efforts and insights from today’s many engagement groups – B20, L20, W20, C20 and T20 to  name some. 

Where are we, then, in the continuing G20 and T20 efforts? Many hundreds of us have just recently attended in Buenos Aires for the final Argentinian T20.  The Argentinians put on a fabulous meeting.  Co-ordinated by co-hosts CARI (The Argentine Council for International Relations) and CIPPEC (Center for the Implementation of Public Policies Promoting Equity and Growth) these think tanks handed off a wide-ranging Communiqué to the Argentinian government – indeed a public presentation to President Macri.  This Communiqué was a product of 10 Task Forces that generated 80 Policy Briefs with as the Communiqué states “with evidence-based policy recommendations to address global challenges such as climate change, food security, multilateral and global inequality, among others.” The hope for the T20, expressed in the Communiqué is that “The Think 20 (T20) works to help the G20 find solutions to global challenges by putting forward concrete proposals that eschew sector-specific interests and are rooted in evidence-based research.”

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