The end of US exceptionalism. Hope for constructive climate action is waning fast. It’s hard to grasp what its hosts hope for COP29. Beware the pitfalls of AI search. The power of storytelling persists – how to do it well.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
ARTICLE OF THE WEEK
Daniel Drezner, The End of American Exceptionalism
(Foreign Affairs, 12 November 2024)
Trump’s decisive victory means that the “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) movement will define US foreign policy for, at least, the next four years. There’ll be three significant differences between Trump’s first- and second-term foreign policies: (1) he’ll come into office with a more homogeneous national security team, (2) the state of the world in 2025 is not the same as it was in 2017, and (3) foreign actors will have a much better read of Donald Trump. Otherwise, his preferences remain constant: (1) he’s a strong believer in using coercion, (2) he subscribes to the “madman theory” while (3) practicing a transactional view of foreign policy. Two important trends: (1) the corruption of US foreign policy, (2) the end of US exceptionalism (metered paywall that may require prior registration, 10-12 min).
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Hayley Warren, David Stringer, Julia Janicki, and Aaron Clark, The World’s Best Hope to Beat Climate Change Is Vanishing
(Bloomberg, 11 November 2024)
Not happy reading but a must-read to grasp easily and comprehensively what’s going on. In brief, key economies and industries are off-track with respect to their crucial emissions targets, all pegged to 2030 deadlines and crucial to avoid the most devastating impacts of global warming. Far from being in retreat, carbon dioxide emissions hit a new record last year, meaning that the world faces a steeper, far costlier and more disruptive journey to reach net zero by 2050. And that was before the re-election of Donald Trump. Read on to understand what needs to be done (metered paywall that requires prior registration, contains many useful graphs, reads in about 10 min).
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Zia Weise and Karl Mathiesen, Azerbaijan craters its own climate conference
(Politico, 14 November 2024)
As an addendum to the article above, to explain how bad it is. There is a sense at COP29 that Baku is out of its depth. Climate policy is in disarray, so is global governance. For reasons that nobody quite understands yet, Azerbaijan’s autocratic president is using the global climate conference he’s hosting as a stage to attack governments, most notably France and the Netherlands. Is the petrostate president committed to the delicate process of finding consensus among the almost 200 countries taking part in this year’s talks? Most likely not (metered paywall, reads in 5-6 min).
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Matteo Wong, The End of Search
(The Atlantic, 8 November 2024)
For nearly two years, the world’s biggest tech companies have said that AI will transform the web, our life, and the world. But first, they are remaking the humble search engine, with AI transforming how billions navigate the web. Wong is not convinced that AI search is a wise endeavor and argues in this article that a lot will be lost in the process. He’s concerned that AI search “could completely reorient our relationship to knowledge, prioritizing rapid, detailed, abridged answers over a deep understanding and the consideration of varied sources and viewpoints” (metered paywall, 5-7 min).
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Micaela Blei, How to tell a better story
(Psyché Magazine, 6 November 2024)
Kahneman famously said: “No one ever made a decision because of a number. They need a story.” We are indeed story tellers and personal stories have the power to connect, entertain, persuade. Blei is a ‘professional’ storyteller who shares in this article many different tips “to pick and prepare a great one”. One key point: storytelling is “something that anyone can learn, practise and enjoy” (metered paywall, around 10 min).
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