Economics & Global Affairs

At the foot of the Eqi Glacier in Greenland in June, I watched ice formed thousands of years ago drop into the warming ocean. With this vivid depiction of climate change in my mind, I was disappointed that neither of the conferences held last month to prepare for the UN’s upcoming COP28 summit had produced any real breakthroughs.

However, while the need for climate action is rising, the stakes for COP, perhaps counter-intuitively, look to be diminishing. An underwhelming COP28 would be a missed opportunity but it may not be a tragedy. Twenty or even 10 years ago, it was reasonable to hope a co-operative approach could address climate. But it is no longer a realistic expectation — nor the most promising route for progress.

The International Energy Agency predicted last month that demand for global oil for transport will peak around 2026, plateau for all uses by 2028, and possibly hit a zenith by the end of the decade. Harvard experts say the forecasts track with what’s going on in the developed world, but the energy needs of less-wealthy nations pressing to develop their economies could foil expectations for years to come.

This paper examines the understudied role of international engagement, and of specific international actors, in greening China’s Belt-and-Road Initiative.

The geopolitical implications of solar displacing oil as the world’s major source of energy are enormous. Why has the Middle East been a central arena in the “great game” for the past century? Because countries there have been the major suppliers of the oil and gas that powered 20th-century economies. If, over the next decade, photovoltaic cells that capture energy from the sun were to replace a substantial part of the demand for oil and gas, who will the biggest losers be? And even more consequentially: who will be the biggest winner?

After an interval when little attention was paid to the long-run prognosis for government debt, its sustainability is again front-and-center in the United States, as in many other countries.  The reason is not the concocted debt ceiling crisis, which was resolved at the end of May, two days before a looming default. A likely reason is, rather, the big increase in interest rates over the last year.

So long as interest rates, both nominal and real, were historically low — even close to zero in 2021 — it seemed fine for the government to borrow.  In particular, short-term real interest rates, that is, nominal interest rates minus expected inflation, were negative.  But now that interest payments on the national debt have risen, with more to come, the situation doesn’t look so benign.

The United States’ debt-to-GDP ratio, which improved during the inflationary spike of 2021-22, is expected to increase as inflation cools and the US population rapidly ages. While ultra-conservative Republicans advocate cutting non-defense discretionary spending to restore debt sustainability, the numbers do not add up.

President Biden may practice old-style Democratic coalition politics, but his party's progressives have gotten a sweet deal. Look no further than the White House's embrace of national economic planning. The younger generation wants a sharp break with the past, and the president is listening. Mr. Biden's new model is the Washington Ordered Economy: a tale of WOE.

Joseph Nye explores what a second Donald Trump presidency may mean for U.S. foreign policy and the world? While the man himself is unpredictable, his first term and his behavior since losing re-election in 2020 offer plenty of clues, none of which would be comforting to America's allies.

A two-decade drought in the western United States, the worst in more than 1,000 years, has pushed chronic water shortages to a critical point, notwithstanding above-average precipitation this past winter.  Similar water shortages afflict Europe and some parts of Africa, Asia, Australia, and Latin America.

Forty million people in western US states get much of their water from the Colorado River. On May 22, their representatives reached a supposedly historic agreement to solve their conflicting claims for the time being.  California, Arizona and Nevada managed to negotiate how to allocate reductions of 14% by 2026, in water drawn from the river.

Farmers in the western United States argue that without access to relatively affordable water for cultivating feed-related crops such as alfalfa, the cost of beef and dairy products would increase. But why should the American public subsidize the production of beef and dairy products or the cultivation of rice in a desert?