What’s happening in Ukraine is inextricably related to what’s going (gone) on internally in Russia over many years. Why increased poverty and food insecurity (particularly in poorer countries) is becoming an external consequence of the war. How the war has changed the world. If the world is to have a chance in the face of climate change, internal policy will need international cooperation. Have we reached a climate-change tipping point?

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“War usually is a miscalculation. It’s based upon assumptions that don’t pan out, things that you believe to be true or want to be true”. Stephen Kotkin in the article of the week

ARTICLE OF THE WEEK

David Remnick, The Weakness of the Despot
(The New Yorker, 11 March 2022)
A must-read! This fascinating interview with Stephen Kotkin (a ‘star’ in the field of Russian history) abounds with insights and sheds much light on Russia’s regime and the significance and potential consequences of its invasion of Ukraine. Some key take-aways (there are many more!): the situation today in Russia is not a response to the actions of the West, but the result of a series of internal processes. There is much relating to the war that “we don’t know anything about because the people who are talking don’t know, and the people who know are not talking”. Russia cannot successfully occupy Ukraine. There is always a possibility of a palace coup, but keep in mind that ‘negative selection’ does protect the leader, but it also undermines his regime. It’s hard for the West to figure out how to de-escalate, how to get out of the spiral of mutual maximalism (metered paywall, 15 min).
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Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, The World Must Avoid Another Food Crisis
(Project Syndicate, 23 March 2022)
The WTO’s DG warns about the world’s most vulnerable people not becoming collateral damage of the war in Ukraine. Russia and Ukraine account for only 2.2% of global goods trade but are highly significant countries in the food and energy markets, and as suppliers of fertilizers and minerals. Prior to the war, rising food and energy prices were straining household and government budgets in many smaller and poorer countries whose economies were amongst the slowest to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. New price spikes triggered by the war now threaten to cause a rise in poverty and food insecurity in most of them (metered paywall – reads in 6-8 min).
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Allan Little, Ukraine war: Putin has redrawn the world – but not the way he wanted
(BBC, 20 March 2022)
This article does a good job at explaining in simple terms why the post-Cold War era that began with the fall of the Berlin Wall is over and what it means. With the invasion of Ukraine, Putin has changed the world and made it more dangerous. He refers to Garton-Ash’s view that the war crystallizes two conflicting conceptions of the rules governing international relations: Helsinki (1975) versus Yalta (1945). The latter is about carving post-war Europe into ‘spheres of influence’ while the former is about independent sovereign states free to choose their own alliances. This is the one now imperilled (free access – 8-10 min).
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Olivier Blanchard and Jean Tirole, Major future economic challenges
(VOXeu, 21 March 2022)
This commission’s work of 24 prominent economists took place before the negative shock of Russia’s war. Their report focuses on what were in the pre-war era the three structural challenges for the global economy: (1) climate change, (2) inequality and (3) demographic change. The column sets out some of the conclusions. They may sometimes seem expensive or unpalatable, but they exist. Most notably, we can learn from local or regional successes. Many policy prescriptions will require international cooperation and support, particularly for the policy solutions to the challenge of climate change (free access – reads in 6-8 min).
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Audrey Carleton, ‘Never Supposed to Happen’: North and South Poles See Unprecedented Heat
(Vice, 21 March 2022)
Scientists worry about extreme temperature spikes at the North and South Poles – signalling possible climate change’s tipping points. Over last weekend, both the North and South Poles reported extreme warm temperatures, reaching record highs: 70 degrees F warmer than average in the south and 50 in the north (respectively 21 and 10 degrees C). According to one climatologist, “climate change is loading the dice for these types of warmer and more moisture events to occur (metered paywall – reads in 4-5 min). And watch THIS to visualize the evolution of global temperature anomalies.
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