Useful to zoom out. What makes climate action hard in the US?
1 It became the worlds LARGEST producer of Oil & Gas over last decade. 2. The Oil & Gas industry employs 10 million people across a dozen states that are overrepresented in Senate
ht @HelenHet20newstatesman.com/world/americas…
4/US is the world's largest producer of Oil & Gas. Almost all the profits go to pvt firms across a dozen states. A few hundred million to buy a few Senators or Judges who allow extraction till kingdom come? Spare change
ht @JaneMayerNYer's book Dark Money
5/ Not just Fossil fuels. Other clusters can "anticipate disruptive tech changes –utilities,engine & turbine manuf, Auto suppliers,steel,cement..."
If regional invstmt isn't done there'll be large swings to Republicans in the future yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/energy…
34/ China's anti-Robber Baron moment? New five-year regulatory effort on Edu & Technology-related sectors on issues like overseas listings, antitrust, privacy.
“looking after middle-class people both in their role as consumers & in their role as workers” ft.com/content/bdcbbd…
35/ Forget 'varieties of capitalism'. We need a 'varieities of corruption' literature. Her fabulous essay on the Robber Barons of Beijing should make you run out to get @yuenyuenang's seminal book foreignaffairs.com/articles/asia/…
36/ "Since Trump's trade war, there has been a total increase of about $200 billion in tariffs from China. For e-commerce companies, this means direct China-US trade has become too expensive. The solution? Mexico."
ht Spencer Potiker @CharmaineSChua
2/ " “Quick Win” solutions focus on halting highly destructive practices, such as widespread deforestation, flaring and fugitive emissions of methane, and “black carbon” emissions from dirty cookstoves, biomass burning, and other sources" drawdown.org/solutions/tabl…
3/ There are obstacles to implementing all of these "Quick Win" solutions, of course, but they offer large and immediate emissions reductions, plus strong economic returns. They are among the lowest hanging fruits globalecoguy.org/we-need-4-wave…
Project drawdown: drawdown.org/solutions/tabl…
21/ "While policymakers in advanced economies...argue about whether...aggressive fiscal stimulus...will generate inflation...inflation has already reached the developing world in the form of rapidly rising global commodity prices incl food"
ht @Jayati1609foreignpolicy.com/2021/08/05/eme…
22/ "Once it is recognised that the US external accounts are driven less by relative goods and service demand—that is by real goods and services—and more by global demand for US financial assets..."
23/ EM banks borrow heavily in dollars.Dollar appreciations lead to contraction in EM banks net worth because the currency value of local assets declines while $ liabilities increase.That leads to declines in credit & invtmnt in EM federalreserve.gov/econres/ifdp/f…
31/ "crackdown on the education companies. Beijing has come to realize that a credentialed arms race has all sorts of bad side effects like delayed marriage, fertility collapse and social alienation and radicalization of people with worthless diplomas"
32/ Investors lose ~$1000 billion in a wild week of market shocks. What is going on w China's regulatory authorities going after education companies,BigTech?
33/ "China quietly issued new procurement guidelines in May that require up to 100% local content on hundreds of items including X-ray machines and magnetic resonance imaging equipment, erecting fresh barriers for foreign suppliers." reuters.com/business/aeros…
25/ Wow. First Chinese regulators went after tech companies. Now SEC.
"The U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) has stopped processing registrations of US initial public offerings (IPOs) & other sales of securities by Chinese companies" reuters.com/business/finan…
26/ With Xi going after China's tech billionaires, George Soros has finally seen enough. Calls Xi Jinping the 'Most Dangerous Enemy' of the Free World.
27/ BlackRock's chief investment strategist: “It has the 2nd-largest equity market, 2nd-largest bond market. It should be represented more in portfolios”
China was antifragile to Covid shock. Came out ahead of peer countries, just as it did after Crash. ft.com/content/f876fb…
"Obama attempted to accelerate the completion of seven major new transmission lines. Only two were finished. Since 2009, China has built more than 18,000 miles of ultrahigh-voltage transmission lines. The U.S. has built zero." @yayitsrob on ELECTRIC MAGIC theatlantic.com/science/archiv…
2/Like many countries, China's demand centers (on coasts) are far away from wind,solar & hydro regions (North,West). Engineering solution to Renewables variability problem is to connect large regions w Hi-Voltage Grids. But politics gets in the way. Thread
3/ You must keep the largest interconnected machines on EARTH alive while it is being whacked by heatwaves, floods, hurricanes, thunderbolts from the sky, and even hackers in basements god-knows-where.
Thread on the US GRID