Opinion

And as 2022 is drawing to a close, here’s one of the most pertinent questions reverberating across the financial world.How will the battle between central banks and inflation play out?For sure, one of the biggest challenges facing the post-pandemic world is how to tame inflation. And central banks seek to manage economies by setting interest rates at levels that speed up or slow down things like car purchases and construction projects.An unparalleled era of easy money came to a screeching halt in 2022, as central banks shifted gears to fight inflation.The US Federal Reserve raised its benchmark rate from near zero to 4% in a mere six months. Companies, countries and consumers that had borrowed heavily when doing so was cheap now faced new strains, just as banks rediscovered caution in lending.This sudden tightening of credit conditions not only increased the risks of recession and defaults but raised worries about emerging financial vulnerabilities.Central banks kept rates low for years in the face of a notably anaemic recovery, then opened the faucets again when the pandemic struck: The Fed cut interest rates back to near zero and didn’t raise them until March 2022.It helped fuel a period of extraordinary growth in US financial markets, save for the short, sharp pandemic drop in 2020.Central bankers, who only a decade ago were feted for their part in rescuing the economy from the global financial crisis, now have their credibility on the line as they struggle to deal with inflation not seen for decades.From Washington to Frankfurt to Wellington, their mantra is that further rate increases are needed even if that will mean “some pain.” Higher costs of borrowing weighs on home-owners and squeezes company margins.Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell has already faced criticism from both sides of the US Congress; and monetary policy in Europe has been challenged by politicians including French President Emmanuel Macron, who has told central bankers to be “very careful”.The Fed’s shift to a more aggressive stance without spooking markets helped forge a majority for tougher action at the Frankfurt-based European central bank (ECB).But concerns that the rate hikes could lead to an explosion in the borrowing costs of indebted euro states – especially Italy – led in June to an agreement to help those countries with a so-called “Transmission Protection Instrument” (TPI) that would, if needed, be activated to prop up their debt.Indeed, a key concern among some central bankers is that politicians will respond to a slowing economy by raising public spending and so aggravate the inflation pressure that their rate-hike cure is intended to heal.Independent central banks consider it their most important mission to keep inflation in check. They set interest rates and use other policy tools to try to keep inflation at a healthy rate.In much of the developed world, including the US and the European Union, that ideal rate is seen as 2%.Now on the flip side, there are signs of a big slowdown.The great interest rate ascent seems finally to be slowing as some of the world’s biggest central banks see signs that inflation is being reined in.As part of its efforts to tamp down relentless inflation, the Fed is projected to raise rates by 50 basis points to a band of 4.25% to 4.5% today. While it’s a smaller hike than at its last four policy meetings, the ECB and the Bank of England are likely to follow suit the next day.

Only a few tall buildings were in place when 31-year-old Samir Shanny was growing up in West Bay, just north of Doha’s central zone, and none of them sparkled the way the Qatari capital’s skyline has as host of the World Cup soccer tournament.Shanny remembers jumping onto his bicycle, finding a few friends and trekking down dirt paths that extended across the Connecticut-sized Arab Gulf nation. Those paths have been replaced by multilane highways linking Doha to a widening multitude of other cities that have blossomed in the desert since the 1990s.“People only ever talk about the bad when it comes to Qatar,” Shanny said in an interview. “Nobody talks about how 20 years ago this was all desert and now it’s full of skyscrapers.”Indeed, in the lead-up to the World Cup, international media outlets scrambled to accentuate the negative, whether it was the heat, the state of gender rights or the accusations of abuses of many of the millions of foreign workers who built the infrastructure and stadiums hosting one of the world’s greatest sports spectacles.They have paid less attention to the nearly inconceivable transformation that Qatar has undergone over the past three decades: from a sleepy Arab backwater to a globally connected power player with dozens of shining skyscrapers, including the cylindric Doha Tower that opened in 2012.The transformation accelerated after Qatar shocked the world in 2010 by being chosen as the first Middle Eastern nation to host the World Cup.People who grew up here have a unique perspective largely overlooked by a world intently focused only on the soccer pitch.“We have seen barren lands of sands turn into cities. Dead ends turn into a whole different world beyond Doha,” said Anushka Mohapatra, a graduate student in the United States who was born in Qatar.“It’s almost nostalgic to see how much everything has changed, transformed and developed over time, especially when Doha first won the [World Cup] bid. It seems so unreal,” Mohapatra said. “It’s been amazing and overwhelming in a way to see how Qatar has progressed and developed.”Roots of a transformationThe changes and the money that has financed them go back decades before Shanny or Mohapatra was born.Life changed forever in 1971 with the discovery just off Qatar’s Arabian Gulf coastline of the largest known natural gas field on Earth. The finding soon enriched the tiny nation and propelled its ruling monarchy to lay the ambitious groundwork for the dramatic growth and internationalisation that now defines Qatar.In the early 1970s, just 130,000 people, mostly poor and predominantly Arab, were living in Qatar. By 2000, the population had more than quadrupled with a widening patchwork of immigrants and guest workers — especially from impoverished corners of South Asia — pouring into the country to satiate its need for labour.Qatar now has a population of nearly 3mn, including some 700,000 in Doha.During the World Cup, some have reflected on the transformation that has been playing out their whole lives.Kelandeth Abdulkader first landed in Qatar in 1960 at the age of 27. “I have grown up seeing the development of this country from a desert to a dreamland,” Abdulkader wrote recently in a firsthand report published by the Doha News.Shamat Khan, who has lived in Qatar since the 1970s, marvelled at the transformation. “It’s wonderful. You cannot imagine. It grew so fast, and now it’s so beautiful,” he said. “There was nothing here before the 2000s. There were very few roads, and now they are everywhere.”The pace of construction has been profoundly disorienting at times. Taxi drivers in Doha have been known to complain about traffic routes changing nightly as a result of constant development. Residents compare it to living in a construction project, alongside some 1.7mn mostly Nepali, Indian and Pakistani guest workers.Change at the topIt wasn’t just money that influenced the rapid transformations. Qatar’s initial development can be attributed to the two most recent Amirs of the ruling monarchy, analysts say.Since the 1800s, the House of Thani has been the ruling family.His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani assumed power in 1995 and is credited with having “ushered in wide-sweeping political and media reforms, unprecedented economic investment, and a growing Qatari regional leadership role,” according to the CIA World Factbook.His Highness Sheikh Hamad opened an inward-looking society to the world and transformed it from a conservative Islamic country into a worldwide educational, developmental and commercial hub. He served as Amir until 2013.By the late 1990s, the Qatari government had established Al Jazeera, the international news network that quickly brought a jolt of energy and controversy to the Arab-language television media piped into millions of homes across the Middle East.Al Jazeera’s reporting gave Qatari leaders outsized influence over regional public opinion. The network is now one of the biggest players on the global media stage and is known for its critical coverage of the powers that be in the Arabian Gulf.His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa opened Qatar’s borders to the international community soon after taking power. In 2008, a pilot programme was launched for a 2030 development vision through four interconnected initiatives focused on human, social, economic and environmental development, according to the Qatari Government Communication Office.Qatar is the world’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas, and its exports of LNG, crude oil and other petroleum products account for a significant portion of government revenue. In 2021, “hydrocarbon revenue contributed around 37% of Qatar’s GDP, a 9% increase from 2020,” according to a recent report by the International Trade Administration.Architects from around the world have descended on Qatar since the late 1990s to create a world-class sports and education destination as envisioned by His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani.After officially receiving the bid for the World Cup in 2010, the government intensified its plans. His Highness Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, His Highness Sheikh Hamad’s son and the current Amir of Qatar, has continued his father’s legacy of modernisation.Human rights and reformsQatari officials said they aim to have the entire nation connected via Qatar Rail by the end of the decade. A Danish engineer working to build the network said the goal involves the expansion of a newly minted metro rail system beyond Doha and surrounding cities.The Doha subway currently serves 37 stations on about 46 miles of track, all built in the past 12 years. Roughly 60 more stations are expected by 2026. Plans have been made to connect the northern town of Al Khor with the southern town of Mesaieed and more western tracks toward Industrial City as part of Qatar’s 2030 vision.The World Cup is not the end goal. Qatar is eyeing a bid to host the 2036 Olympics and the world cricket championships. Officials say the infrastructure now in place, along with what is in the works, will only strengthen the bids.Still, the campaign is likely to keep a bright spotlight on Qatar’s labour standards and its laws regarding human rights. The country has enacted a raft of reforms in recent years, including the partial dismantling of a system that tied workers to their employers, and approved a minimum wage. The United Nations and human rights groups praised the changes.Critics say abuses, including unpaid wages and harsh working conditions in some of the worst desert heat around the globe, are still widespread. Workers are barred from forming unions or striking, they say, and have few realistic avenues to pursue justice.Human Rights Watch noted last month that HE Hassan al-Thawadi, secretary-general of Qatar’s Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, acknowledged in a TV interview that 400 to 500 migrant workers had died in 12 years from construction projects.Education and sportsQatar’s reach into international sports competitions is not the only focus. The Qatar Foundation, created in 1995, has employed different strategies to boost the country’s educational system and resources, including an Education City.By the mid-2000s, several universities from the United States, Europe and across the Middle East had opened satellite campuses in Education City. “Investing in the human commodity is the most important thing,” Qatar Foundation President Saad al-Muhannadi said in a 2014 interview with MEED, a publication focused on the Middle East.“[The aim was] introducing quality educational programmes and building research to be part of our culture,” he said. “That is why we are so keen on mandating that every programme and initiative of Qatar Foundation has to have research and development and quality be part of it.”The Qatar Foundation said it is investing in sports for men and women. It has specifically touted plans for a post-World Cup use of Education City Stadium as “a hub for sport, development and education and a home for women and girls sports at every level.”It is clearly sports that has kick-started Qatar’s effort to revamp its global image.Qatar hosted the Asia Games, its first major international sporting event, in 2006 and claims to have since hosted more than 600 international and regional events. In June, Qatar 2022 CEO Nasser al-Khater told Doha News that plans include a world handball championship, a weightlifting title and a Formula One auto race in the next decade.Qatar Foundation official Alexandra Chalat wrote recently in the organisation’s newsletter that the Qatari organisers are considering ways to build on the “legacy” of the World Cup, even with the matches yet to conclude.“How are we using an event, where the world is watching, to enable genuine learning and development?” she wrote. “And how are we doing that amidst controversy, media backlash and cultural clashes?”* Guy Taylor contributed to this report.

The world is confronting multiple, compounding crises, from Covid-19, energy, inflation, debt, and climate shocks to unaffordable living costs and political instability. The need for ambitious action cannot be greater. However, the return of failed policies such as austerity, now called “fiscal restraint” or “fiscal consolidation,” and a lack of effective taxation and debt-reduction initiatives threaten to exacerbate the macroeconomic instability and daily hardships that billions of people are facing. Unless policymakers change course, an “austerity pandemic” will make global economic recovery even more difficult.As we show in a recent report, the looming wave of austerity will be even more premature and severe than the one that followed the 2008 global financial crisis. An analysis of IMF expenditure projections indicates that 143 governments will cut spending (as a share of GDP) in 2023, affecting more than 6.7 billion people – or 85% of the world population. In fact, most governments started scaling back public spending in 2021, and the number of countries slashing budgets is expected to rise through 2025. With average spending cuts of 3.5% of GDP in 2021, this contraction has already been much bigger than in earlier shocks.Even more worryingly, upwards of 50 countries are adopting excessive cuts, meaning their spending has fallen below their (already low) pre-pandemic levels. This cohort contains many countries – including Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini, Guyana, Liberia, Libya, Sudan, Suriname, and Yemen – with large unmet development needs.The austerity measures that governments are considering or already implementing will be deeply harmful to their populations, and especially to women. Governments are planning to limit social protections for vulnerable populations; cut programs for families, the elderly, and people with disabilities; slash or cap the public-sector wage bill (implying a reduction of frontline workers like teachers and health personnel); eliminate subsidies; privatise transportation, energy, and water services; cut pension benefits; reduce labour protections and employers’ social-security contributions; and decrease health expenditures.In parallel, many governments are adopting short-term revenue-generation strategies that will also have detrimental social effects. These include increasing consumption taxes – such as regressive sales and value-added taxes (VAT) – strengthening public-private partnerships, and increasing fees for public services.Just in eastern and southern Africa, Unicef finds that Eswatini (formerly Swaziland), Kenya, Madagascar, Rwanda, and South Africa are considering or implementing three categories of austerity measures, while Lesotho is pursuing four categories, and Botswana five. Botswana, Kenya, Madagascar, Rwanda, Uganda, and Zambia are each applying four or more categories of measures to boost revenue. Including spending cuts and tax increases, Botswana, Kenya, Madagascar, Rwanda, and Zambia are each considering at least seven categories of austerity measures that are known to have adverse social impacts.Not only are these governments pursuing painful austerity at a time when the region is dealing with unprecedented droughts and a cost-of-living crisis. They also are showing little willingness to adopt policies – such as higher tax rates for corporations and wealthy individuals – that are critical to reducing their already-high levels of inequality.Unless austerity is reversed, people in developing countries will lose social protections and public services just when they are most needed. According to Oxfam, almost half of the global population is already living on less than $5.50 per day. And, lest we forget, trillions of dollars have been mobilised since the start of the pandemic to support corporations, while ordinary people have borne many of the costs of adjustment.The dangers of an aggressive austerity approach were made clear over the past decade. From 2010 to 2019, billions of lives were upended by cuts to pensions and social benefits; lower investments in programmes for women, children, and the elderly; fewer and lower-paid teachers, health, and local civil servants; and higher prices from basic consumption taxes.It doesn’t have to be this way. There are alternatives to austerity. Even in the poorest countries, there are at least nine other financing options that some governments have been using for years, and that are fully endorsed by the UN and international financial institutions. These include progressive taxation; debt elimination or restructuring; clamping down on illicit financial flows; increasing employers’ social-security contributions and coverage by formalising workers in the informal economy; using fiscal and foreign-exchange reserves; re-allocating public expenditures; adopting a more accommodating macroeconomic framework; securing official development assistance; and new allocations of the IMF’s reserve asset, special drawing rights. — Project Syndicate

Though the US Supreme Court appears reluctant to free North Carolina Republican lawmakers from judicial scrutiny as much as they want on voting rules, the restrictions it may allow still could give politicians more power over the way federal elections are conducted at a delicate time for American democracy.Hearing arguments on Wednesday in a fight over a map laying out the state’s 14 US House of Representatives districts, some of the conservative justices balked at the broadest arguments by these lawmakers arising from a contentious legal theory that would remove any role of state courts and state constitutions in regulating presidential and congressional elections.The court has a 6-3 conservative majority. Some combination of the six conservatives can be expected to determine the outcome, considering the opposition by the three liberal justices to the “independent state legislature” doctrine.Three of the conservatives — Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — are likely to be pivotal. They seemed to focus on a narrower option than the Republican lawmakers sought — curbing state court authority to overrule voting policies crafted by state politicians in instances in which judges act more like legislators.“It would be fair to say, whether a broad or narrow ruling, it’s a win for North Carolina lawmakers,” said Jason Snead, a conservative elections expert.This type of “middle ground” ruling, as some court watchers have called it, would still place the lawmakers in the “driver’s seat” when it comes to regulating federal elections, said Snead, who heads the Honest Elections Project, a group that sometimes opposes bids for more expansive voting rules favoured by liberal organisations and Democrats.“You would end up in a better position as a legislature in terms of having your authority to write election laws affirmed,” Snead said.This outcome would not be as onerous as completely cutting state courts out of the elections process, according to Richard Hasen, a UCLA School of Law election law expert.But it is still a “bad alternative,” Hasen said, because it would let the Supreme Court second-guess state court rulings protecting the rights of voters — even in highly charged elections cases including presidential races.“State legislators would get another bite at the apple,” Hasen said.The case has come to the Supreme Court at a time of sharp divisions over voting rights and American political polarisation, particularly in the aftermath of Republican former president Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him through widespread voting fraud.Democrats have accused Republican state legislatures of undercutting the rights of voters by imposing new restrictions in the aftermath of Trump’s claims, while Republicans assert that they are simply guarding against fraud.State courts in North Carolina threw out a congressional map drawn by the Republican legislators as unlawfully biased against Democratic voters and replaced it with one drawn by a bipartisan group of experts. In their appeal to the Supreme Court, the Republicans argued that North Carolina’s top court usurped their authority by throwing out the map.Proponents of the doctrine contend that the US Constitution gives state legislatures authority over election rules and electoral district maps, cutting out any role for entities like state courts. That view is based on the Constitution’s statement that the “times, places and manner” of federal elections “shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof.”If adopted, it could restrict a crucial check on partisan political power, making it easier for a state legislature’s majority party to draw the boundaries of US congressional districts to entrench its own power, a practice called gerrymandering. It could stymie challenges on issues as varied as voter-identification requirements, mail-in ballots and drop boxes, which Republicans have sought to restrict in some states.Some of the conservative justices signalled a potential appetite for applying the view of then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist in his concurrence to the court’s decision that tipped the 2000 presidential election to Republican George W. Bush. In that context — a fight over counting ballots in Florida — Rehnquist said the US Constitution limits the authority of state courts.Kavanaugh told David Thompson, the lawyer representing the Republicans, that his position seemed to “go further” than Rehnquist’s view that state courts would still have a role to ensure that state lawmakers’ actions complied with state law.A federal court review of that process, Kavanaugh added, “should be a check to make sure that state courts had not significantly departed from state law.”Embracing this view raises concerns over state sovereignty, Neal Katyal, a lawyer representing the voters and voting rights groups that challenged the Republican-drawn map, told the justices.“This court has never second-guessed state court interpretations of their own constitution,” said Katyal.Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, arguing for President Joe Biden’s administration backing the voters, agreed that intervention in such matters by the Supreme Court should be limited to situations in which a state court is policymaking, “not acting like a court.”Liberal Justice Elena Kagan warned that adopting such a standard to strike down a state court might be “satisfied too easily” because judges frequently accuse other judges of engaging in policymaking rather than law.“These are things that judges say to each other all the time. How is this going to be a check that’s used rarely?” Kagan asked.Thomas Wolf, an attorney at New York University School of Law’s Brennan Center for Justice, said if the Supreme Court gives itself too much leeway to intervene in state court disputes, it risks appearing politically motivated and lawless.Conservative scholars reject the view that the doctrine would give state politicians unbridled power because the actions of legislatures would remain constrained by the US Constitution and federal law.The Supreme Court’s ruling is due by the end of June.

Gulf Times had mentioned in these columns the same day last week that by the time the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 concludes, the country would have added more feathers to its crown. With just a week left for the mega sporting event to conclude, the host nation continues to win the hearts and minds of fans from across the world apart from earning acclaim for its organisational brilliance. Ranging from state-of-the-art stadiums and superb security arrangements facilitating a crime-free environment to an awesome public transport network, the feathers are many. The whole world is in awe of Qatar’s amazing achievements linked to the greatest show on earth, which has got billions of viewers glued to the screens since the tournament kicked off on November 20.For instance, extensive preparation and strong collaboration with stakeholders are helping Qatar deliver smooth transport operations for fans, teams and officials. The Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy (SC) and countrywide partners have worked closely over recent years to organise seamless transport options. Key lessons learned from previous events, including the FIFA Club World Cup and FIFA Arab Cup, helped the SC create a bespoke plan for the FIFA World Cup, which included four matches a day from November 21 to December 2.International fans were encouraged to use the Doha Metro and shuttle bus services to attend matches and visit entertainment sites, while local residents were advised to drive. The result has been beyond excellent, with fans and media praising the ease of getting around the country. As SC’s mobility executive director engineer Abdulaziz al-Mawlawi, recalled the other day, four matches a day was a huge challenge and took years of preparation. The SC worked closely with the Ministry of Transport, Ministry of Interior Traffic Department, Qatar Rail, Ashghal, Mowasalat and ride share apps, along with both airports, to develop the plans, which included launching a Transport Management Centre to manage traffic and ensure a seamless experience on match days.There has been a flood of positive feedback about transport operations and the last-mile journey, especially from fans who have flown to Qatar from all over the world. So many fans have been able to attend more than one match a day – which has been one of the unique features of this World Cup. Al-Mawlawi said clear way finding and regular communications form a key part of the project, which will continue until all the visiting fans have departed Qatar. Qatar’s robust transport infrastructure means the country is well positioned to host major sporting events in future.Another achievement is Mowasalat (Karwa) transport company recording a significant reduction in carbon CO2 emissions by approximately 1,684,256kg over the first 16 days since the beginning of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022. Data on the operations of the company’s buses and services from November 20 to December 6, showed that the reduction in carbon emissions is equivalent to the planting of 12,205 trees annually. The reduction was made through the recent introduction of 900 electric buses into service to contribute to making the Qatar World Cup the world’s first zero-emission football tournament. The buses powered by Euro 5 diesel engines have the lowest emission rate to provide safe and environmentally friendly public transport.The buses recorded as many as 141,309 service hours, travelled about 1,848,393km during which approximately 4,427,887 fans were transferred to various destinations and stations nationwide and to the events areas related with the tournament from its start to the end of the round of 16. More records are on the way during the last week of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022.

As thousands of people descended on Montreal last week for an ongoing crucial UN biodiversity summit, fears are growing among delegates over whether the countries involved can agree on an ambitious global pact to protect nature this decade.Extra talks in the days before the December 7-19 summit, known as COP15, hoped to streamline the wording of draft biodiversity protection targets — pushing more than 190 nations towards a successful compromise.Instead, the draft nature pact has become even messier.“I don’t feel that the delegates went as far as we would have expected,” said Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, executive secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, at a press conference this week.Environmentalists say a deal on nature is vital amid widespread degradation caused by human activity, with the world’s wildlife populations declining by more than two-thirds since 1970, according to green group WWF.Improving conservation and management of natural areas, such as parks, oceans, forests and wildernesses, is seen as crucial to safeguarding the ecosystems on which humans depend and limiting global warming to internationally agreed targets.This week, environment ministers are due to arrive at COP15 to hash out any remaining disagreements but there are still major fault-lines between negotiators.The current draft agreement has around 1,400 phrases which are bracketed, indicating a lack of consensus over wording, despite years of talks and Covid-19 delays.“The general approach of parties has been to really entrench themselves in the positions that have come forward over the last four years,” said Masha Kalinina, a conservation officer at the non-profit Pew Charitable Trusts.30 BY 30One key goal that could determine whether Montreal is a success is the headline target to protect at least 30% of lands and oceans by 2030, known as 30 by 30.The pledge has already drawn support from more than 110 nations, and would represent a significant increase in protected areas, which currently cover just 17% of lands and less than 8% of marine areas, according to a UN report released last year.But concern is growing among nature experts that marine protection, in particular, is being weakened during the COP15 talks.“What I’m most nervous about is that there would be an attempt to reduce the percentage ambition for the ocean down from 30%,” said Kalinina.Kalinina warned that during previous biodiversity talks in Japan in 2010, scientists called for 20% of the ocean to be protected by 2020 but only 10% was agreed.“That was a political target that was negotiated on the last day of that COP,” she said on the Japan talks.“We are worried that history could repeat itself but we are not in a place to survive that kind of mistake.”Achilles heelMany of the world’s most biodiversity-rich areas are situated in developing nations, from the Amazon rainforest to coastal mangroves in Southeast Asia.As about 195 countries look to finalise an accord to safeguard plants, animals and ecosystems, developing nations are seeking more funding from wealthier states to help them achieve any agreed targets.“Financing is always the Achilles heel of every global agreement,” said Florian Titze, a policy advisor at WWF Germany, at a press conference.“We are really concerned that financing could be the issue that derails these negotiations at the end, and that will keep us from successfully agreeing an ambitious framework,” he said.Investments in protecting and better managing the world’s ecosystems will need to reach about $384 billion a year by 2025, more than double their current levels, a UN Environment Programme report said last week.Led by a number of African countries, developing nations at the COP15 talks are calling for at least $100bn in nature financing from richer countries each year — an echo of a similar climate change commitment starting from 2020 that wealthy nation have yet to meet.“If there is no finance, the developing countries are clearly saying that they don’t have the capacity to do what they are supposed to do,” said Souparna Lahiri, a climate policy advisor at green umbrella group the Global Forest Coalition.The European Union delegation however, has emphasised the need to mobilise finance from all sources, including the private sector, and adopt more sustainable business practices.“The bulk of the financial resources that are necessary for implementing the framework will have to be raised in a domestic context,” said Hugo-Maria Schally, an adviser on environment negotiations at the European Commission.While promising to deliver on a pledge to invest €7bn ($7.4bn) in biodiversity protection worldwide by 2025, Schally said international public finance “will actually play a minor part” in achieving COP15 goals.With so many disagreements still to be resolved in the COP15 negotiations, the race is now on to find a breakthrough.Li Shuo, a policy adviser at Greenpeace China, said all countries — including COP15 president China — need to step up to take leadership and inject more urgency into the talks.Despite the challenges, he said nature protection talks could provide an opportunity to send a “strong signal” in support of multilateral co-operation between nations.“This is actually a perfect platform to build political trust,” Li added. — Thomson Reuters Foundation

In its first year, Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government has driven the biggest overhaul of German policy since World War Two. The next year could be even tougher, further absorbing Berlin’s bandwidth to Europe’s detriment.Scholz, formerly the finance minister, came to power pledging continuity with the era of Angela Merkel who oversaw 16 years of prosperity and stability in Europe’s largest economy, enabling her to take stewardship of the broader region.Russia’s invasion of Ukraine instead cast a shadow over her legacy and forced him to focus on re-arming Germany, replacing the cheap Russian energy deliveries upon which it relied and accelerating a shift in foreign policy towards more strategy and less mercantilism.The “Zeitenwende” or epochal change of times, as Scholz dubbed it, has proven all the trickier given the heterogeneity of his government — the first three-way coalition at national level in decades.His centre-left Social Democrats, the Greens and liberal Free Democrats, have had to wrangle to reach compromises, sometimes delaying decisions.Some European allies say the focus on domestic challenges and internal politicking have distracted Berlin from regional co-operation and especially the key German-French motor that traditionally drives the European Union.Their frustration reached boiling point when Berlin did not seek to co-ordinate its latest mammoth economic relief package with other European capitals to avoid market distortions.A French diplomat said Germany appeared to be isolating itself, noting that the leaders of France and Germany no longer spoke every day, unlike under Merkel. “And that’s not good.”Scholz’s understated communication and leadership style — which helps him manage his coalition but can come across as aloof — has not helped.Given the dimension of the problems, the government has gotten through this first year pretty well, said Frank Decker, political analyst at Bonn University. “But the problems remain and will worsen in the future.”The cold weather has only just begun, testing Germany’s ability to stay warm without Russian gas deliveries, and prices are unlikely to return to what they were.The German economy is expected to dip into recession next year. And the government’s planned tougher approach towards top trade partner China as well as new US green subsidies will pose further challenges to Germany’s traditional free trade, export-driven business model.Relief measures worth hundreds of billions of euros have helped Scholz’s coalition stave off serious social unrest due to soaring energy prices in the wake of the Ukraine war, but recent polls suggest it has lost its majority.“This country is in search of a new foreign policy posture, in search of a new business model,” said Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff at the German Marshall Fund think tank. “And as long as it does that, it is going to join the ranks of those European countries that are no longer available for European leadership.”To be sure, Germany’s allies have welcomed the Zeitenwende after years of warning the country of complacency on security.In a landmark speech days after the Ukraine invasion, Scholz vowed to raise defence spending to Nato’s goal of 2% of gross domestic product and broke a taboo rooted in war guilt, pledging to send weapons to a war zone in order to support Kyiv.One Western diplomat in Berlin, who declined to be named, said few people thought Scholz would actually dispatch any weapons to Ukraine given its dark Nazi history. “Germany does not get enough credit for this,” he said.Poor communication was partly to blame, the diplomat said. For example Berlin announced in January the delivery of helmets to Ukraine to defend itself against possible invasion, prompting ridicule, but did not publish the lengthy list of weapons it had sent until June.The government has also won praise for its commitment to wean Germany off Russian energy, even at the cost of having to break political taboos like extending the lifespans of the remaining nuclear plants and reviving coal power plants.More recently US administration officials have privately credited Scholz with securing during a visit to Beijing last month the first statement from Chinese President Xi Jinping opposing the use or threat of nuclear weapons in Ukraine.Still, his trip so soon after Xi consolidated his grip on power at China’s Communist Party Congress raised eyebrows as did his decision to allow a Chinese shipping company to take a stake in a Hamburg port terminal.A second French diplomat said there was concern that Berlin might be making the same mistake with China that it did when it failed to acknowledge the security threat posed by its over-reliance on Russian gas. — Reuters

As climate chaos threatens the Global North and the lifestyles of the world’s richest people, we might expect to hear elites demand a rapid exit from reliance on fossil fuels. Instead, a controversial idea is coming to the fore: dimming the sun. Advocates claim that through science fiction-like methods, known as solar geoengineering, we can dial down the planet’s thermostat by decreasing the amount of energy that reaches the atmosphere. The idea has gained enough traction for rich philanthropists to notice and for the White House to fund research. There’s just one problem: it’s a recipe for disaster.One technological proposal currently making headlines is Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI), with advocates claiming releasing aerosols into the upper atmosphere and bouncing sunlight back into space would reduce surface temperatures. This idea is gaining traction at a time when some contend that we should be working on a plan B because it is too late to limit global warming to 1.5C as agreed in the 2015 Paris climate agreement. But giving up this ambition would be a gift to carbon polluters, as International Energy Agency Executive Director Fatih Birol recently explained, and the notion that solar geoengineering could ever be a plan B is false and dangerous.Experts have repeatedly debunked the idea that we can “control” the earth’s thermostat. The world’s foremost authority on climate science, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has warned that solar geoengineering is not a credible solution. Climate models show that masking global heating with sunlight reduction could bring massive changes in atmospheric circulation and alter rainfall patterns – such as the monsoon – with especially pronounced effects in countries that are already experiencing increasingly severe and frequent storms, droughts, fires, and other climate-related events.To work, solar geoengineering technologies like SAI would require unprecedented international co-operation. Governments would need to align to get chemical-spraying airplanes off the ground, for example, implying that only powerful countries or military regimes could provide the necessary infrastructure. Chemical mining and production would require additional infrastructure on a massive scale. And all of this would need to be sustained for decades or longer. If a new government stopped an aerosol injection programme after regime change, it could trigger a “termination shock” that sent global temperatures soaring, in line with existing greenhouse-gas levels in the atmosphere.Despite this, Harvard University is set to test the equipment associated with SAI in the context of a controversial research project. But this method is effectively ungovernable. That is why hundreds of academics are calling for a Solar Geoengineering Non-Use Agreement to block public funds for the technology, ban outdoor experiments, patenting, and deployment, and to counter support in international fora and policy discussions.In addition to the technological and political limitations, prominent lawyers say solar geoengineering is at odds with international human rights and environmental law. If geoengineering changes weather patterns, it could infringe on people’s rights to life, health, and a livelihood. Moreover, SAI could violate the legal duty to avoid causing transboundary environmental harm. A technology set to impact the climate on the global scale would also require everyone potentially affected to have a say – an impossible idea.But if we know these schemes won’t work, are full of risks, cannot be tested or governed, and delay near-term climate action, why are we seeing increased momentum and support for them? Put simply, they give big polluters a get-out-of-jail-free card and allow them to patent and profit from the relevant technologies and associated infrastructures.Oil and gas companies have been researching and patenting (solar and other) geoengineering technologies for decades. In fact, most solar geoengineering models rely on large-scale deployment of Carbon Dioxide Removal to deal with the continued production and combustion of fossil fuels. Proponents of CDR offer carbon removal offsets to polluters, undermining long-term solutions and exacerbating the climate emergency. Worryingly, calls for CDR gained momentum at this year’s COP27, which risks blowing a massive hole in the Paris agreement.While geoengineering supporters often say it is in the interest of the disadvantaged Global South, the Global South isn’t buying it. In fact, most groups in the global climate movement reject solar geoengineering entirely. Indigenous communities have rallied against solar geoengineering experiments in places such as Alaska and Sweden. In reality, it is the richest and most polluting countries (especially the United States) that are researching and funding these technologies.Once the world awakens to the reality that there is no quick fix to remove carbon from the atmosphere and no substitute for a rapid phaseout of fossil fuels, solar geoengineering might gain undeserved credibility as a last-ditch option – full of risks but supposedly without alternative. We must not allow that scenario to come true.This means that we must not allow it to become normalised through policy debates, private initiatives, government proposals, and research. The science is clear: We can still prevent irreversible harms to ecosystems and human rights. But the only way to avoid further climate disasters is real climate action now. We must accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels – and leave the science fiction on the shelf. – Project Syndicate* Lili Fuhr is Deputy Director of the Climate and Energy Program at the Center for International Environmental Law.

Over the past six weeks or so, US mortgage rates have fallen, stock prices are up, and yields on corporate debt have dropped, all signs that financial conditions are easing even as the Federal Reserve continues to wage war on 40-year-high inflation.But unlike this past summer, when Fed Chair Jerome Powell pushed back hard in the face of a similar set of market moves, US central bankers may this time be mostly okay with it.The Fed next week is expected to slow what’s been a blistering pace of interest rate increases this year, with Powell telegraphing a half-of-a-percentage point increase in the policy rate, to a range of 4.25-4.5%.The Fed raised rates by 75 basis points at each of its last four meetings as it sought to lift borrowing costs high enough to bite into economic growth.Anticipation that December’s smaller rate hike means the Fed is closer to ending rate hikes altogether, along with data showing inflation may be cooling and remarks from Powell that he and his colleagues “do not want to overtighten,” has fuelled the recent easing in financial conditions.That’s despite Powell and other policymakers repeatedly saying they are not done raising rates, and won’t be until they are convinced that inflation, now running at 6% by the Fed’s preferred gauge, is headed down to the Fed’s 2% goal.Still, BNY Mellon Investment Management economist Sonia Meskin said, “they don’t appear to me as concerned about the loosening of financial conditions” as they were in the summer, when rate hikes had only just begun.“I would expect him to reiterate that they’re going to keep policy restrictive for some time, but I don’t think he is likely to say anything beyond that, and the reason is, they actually want to keep their options open,” she said.The Fed will likely need to raise the policy rate “somewhat higher” than the 4.6% policymakers projected in September, Powell said late last month.Fresh projections by Fed policymakers released after next week’s meeting are expected to reflect that, along with a forecast for no cuts to the policy rate until 2024.But inflation data or readings on the labour market could come in lower than expected, allowing the Fed to lean into the easing in financial conditions and stopping rate hikes at a lower point than otherwise.Or things could get worse, perhaps because labour supply constraints continue to feed higher wages and push up on inflation, a possibility Powell nodded to in recent remarks and could reprise next week. There is also uncertainty over how tight policy actually is.Researchers at the San Francisco Fed recently tried to capture the effect of the Fed’s forward guidance and reductions to its balance sheet, and concluded that monetary policy is actually tighter now than the Fed funds rate suggests.That could feed into arguments that the economy and labour markets are poised to weaken next year, easing inflation pressures.Meanwhile, unemployment has stayed at a low 3.7%, below where Fed policymakers had thought it would be as tighter policy slowed the economy.Part of the reason the Fed may be more comfortable with easing financial conditions now than in the summer is simply that the Fed has already raised interest rates by nearly 4 percentage points.It expects the effects of those higher borrowing costs on the economy as a whole to take a while yet to kick in. – Reuters

Pulling out a shirt from a shelf at her shop in central India, Chandrawati Rajpoot recalls the sleepless nights she had after borrowing money from a loan shark — twice to pay for her sons’ college tuition and once for a medical emergency.Unable to pay the 5% daily interest on her last loan of Rs20,000 ($245) in 2019, she was forced to give away her gold bangles — a family heirloom — to stop the moneylender from harassing her.“In desperate times, (loan sharks) are the only option ... but they are ruthless,” said Rajpoot, 44, in her village of Narela in Madhya Pradesh state, recounting how lenders showed up at her home, shouting abuse and threats of violence.But those days came to an end in late 2020 when she signed up for a low-cost loan programme with a group of local women, in which they act as guarantors for each other — highlighting a growing shift towards formal microfinance among Indian women.With the help of a loan of about Rs30,000, Rajpoot is now the owner of a small dairy herd comprising seven cows and one buffalo, and a shop selling children’s clothing.They earn her about Rs90,000 a month — or nearly three times what she made two years ago as a farm labourer.Rajpoot said she was left with enough to easily pay the Rs1,660 monthly instalment to Spandana Sphoorty Financial Limited, a microfinance company.“For the first time, I don’t constantly worry about how to make ends meet,” said Rajpoot, adding that she plans to expand her own businesses, and help her children start their own.Formal micro lenders are playing an increasingly important financing role in remote and rural areas where banks have limited reach or are unwilling to lend to the poor, industry analysts say.Nearly two dozen women told the Thomson Reuters Foundation they did not go to banks for loans because they were either asked to provide collateral, which they could not manage without any assets in their name, or do lengthy paperwork — a challenge for those with little to no literacy skills.More than 75% adults — and over 80% of women — are financially illiterate in India, according to the National Centre for Financial Education.Shalini Sinha, the India representative for WIEGO, a network which helps informal workers, warned that if poor women were not offered adequate financial knowledge and insurance, it could force them to turn to loan sharks.From shop owners and jewellers to subcontractors, many locals operate as private moneylenders, who, compared to banks, are more easily accessible and do not bother with documentation.“(But) the interest charged is so very high ... that she cannot repay the loan, so she takes another one and it becomes a vicious cycle of poverty,” Sinha said.Loan sharks have monopolised the rural credit market for generations in India, often charging abnormally high interest rates of up to 10% a day, financial experts say.They rarely spare defaulters, using heavy-handed means to collect debts.In September, a married couple in southern Andhra Pradesh state died by suicide after loan app agents threatened them by saying their intimate photos would be posted on social media.Andhra Pradesh, once known as the centre of India’s microfinance sector, curbed micro lending activities more than a decade ago after a spate of suicides by borrowers, and in 2015 it banned moneylenders from operating without a licence after arresting some 200 people over harassment complaints.Vivek Tiwari, the managing director and chief executive officer of New Delhi-based Satya MicroCapital Limited, said one of the main challenges for his teams was battling informal lenders in new places.“They don’t want us in these markets,” he said, recalling an incident in which his colleagues were held at gunpoint in a northern village by local moneylenders.Tiwari, also the vice chair of Microfinance Institutions Network (MFIN), a self-regulatory organisation for the sector, said that despite obstacles MFIs were making significant inroads in unbanked and financially unserved parts of India.More than 60mn Indian women currently hold small, collateral-free loans, impacting as many as 300mn families in the country of some 1.4bn people, according to the MFIN.“We are giving more freedom to people. They can borrow and repay with pride. That’s why they don’t want to get into the traps set by moneylenders again,” Tiwari said.MFIs offer doorstep credit and also financial literacy training, which includes how to access banking services and repay loans responsibly as well as planning future investments and savings.All of the women interviewed said such programmes not only helped them dodge loan sharks and break debt cycles, but had also equipped them to start small businesses that had eased their cash flow problems, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic.They highlighted the benefits for household budgeting, their children’s education and nutrition, and during emergencies.Several women said they were most thrilled about generating jobs and incomes for fellow villagers.“After I bought two sewing machines, I hired a young man to help keep up with the demand,” said Kiran Devi, who pays her sole employee 7,000 rupees at her home-based tailor shop, which she started last year with a 50,000-loan in northern Uttar Pradesh state.Such accomplishments encourage disciplined repayment by women — with timely collections recorded at nearly 99% — which in turn brings other benefits such as access to bigger loan amounts and better terms, industry experts say.Anshukant Taneja, head of the micro finance programme at the Asian Development Bank (ADB), which has supported more than 8mn female borrowers in India, said such initiatives also boost women’s community roles.With more economic progress and regulatory easing in the country, he hopes to see MFIs deliver other financial products such as micro-insurance, small mortgages and a channel to mobilise savings.In the meantime MFIs face a series of challenges, he said, including how to manage their portfolios and ensure borrowers have loans that match their income levels to prevent excessive lending, and expanding their programme to remote areas where costs may be high and there are fewer borrowers.For now, women like Mithilesh Yadav are chalking out future goals with the aid of micro loans. From being a housewife to becoming the owner of small grocery and a tailor shop, the 26-year-old said she had never imagined “living so comfortably”.Over the last seven years, Yadav has taken a series of loans to fulfil some of her childhood ambitions, including owning a home and a car. But she said she was not done yet, with plans to open a beauty salon and buy land for her children.“My siblings and I struggled a lot. We had to drop out of school early and help our parents with labour work,” said the mother-of-two at her store in Madhya Pradesh, where she taught herself how to sew by watching YouTube videos.“But I still have big dreams. I want to be a successful businesswoman who my children look up to.” — Thomson Reuters Foundation

Vietnam is eyeing a major defence shift as it seeks to reduce its reliance on Russian arms and launch a push to export locally made weapons, officials and analysts said, with possible buyers in Africa, Asia – and potentially even Moscow.The Southeast Asian nation is one of the world’s 20 biggest buyers of weapons amid on-and-off tensions with China, with an annual budget for arms imports estimated at about $1bn and set to grow, according to GlobalData, a provider of military procurement intelligence.Most of that money has historically gone to Russia, which was for decades Vietnam’s main supplier of weapons and defence systems. That made Vietnam one of the top buyers of Russian arms, according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), which tracks global military expenditures.But that is changing as Vietnam strives to become more self-sufficient, obtain advanced gear that Russia can’t provide, and faces Western pressure to reduce arms purchases from Moscow amid its invasion of Ukraine, analysts said.Instead, Vietnam is turning to suppliers from Europe, East Asia, India, Israel and the United States, diplomats, officials and analysts said. It has also boosted its domestic military industry with support from Israel and other partners, and hopes to export weapons, analysts and officials said.Nguyen The Phuong, formerly a defence researcher at Vietnam National University and now at the University of New South Wales, Australia, said there had even been internal discussions in October about whether the country should sell weapons to Russia — although no decision on that was seen as imminent.The Russian embassy in Hanoi and Vietnam’s defence and foreign ministries had no comment.The country began hosting its first large-scale international arms trade fair yesterday, for which more than 170 companies from 30 countries have registered, the defence ministry said.They include Western companies such as US defence contractor Lockheed Martin and France’s Nexter, and defence groups from Israel, India, Japan and the United Arab Emirates.The three-day event in Hanoi will help Vietnam “diversify procurement channels and sources of technologies to produce military equipment for the country’s armies and for exports,” the ministry said in a statement in November.The country’s defence industry produces armed vehicles and light weapons, such as anti-tank rockets, grenade launchers and machine guns, Phuong said.He added that Vietnam had started to develop more high-tech systems, including drones, radars and anti-ship missiles, often in partnership with foreign firms.Last week the defence ministry in its official newspaper said Vietnamese state-owned Z111 military firm would exhibit pistols, machine guns, assault rifles and sniper rifles at the arms fair, with the aim of exporting them.Dozens of Vietnamese defence firms, including army-controlled Viettel, will also showcase their wares. The government and military companies do not publish data on sales.Siemon Wezeman, senior researcher at SIPRI, said Vietnam’s known production capabilities were very limited, with only small reconnaissance drones having been delivered in the last decade — although the country has increased its capabilities for assembling radars, missiles and ships designed by foreign partners.Possible buyers for small arms would most likely be Vietnam’s neighbour Laos and African countries, where Vietnam could offer competitive prices, said Ha Hoang Hop, a military procurement expert and visiting fellow at Singapore-based ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute.Phuong said Latin American countries and other Southeast Asian nations are other potential customers.A half-dozen Russian defence firms are registered for the Hanoi fair, including Rosoboronexport, the state agency that imports and exports weapons.Hop said Vietnam was negotiating possible deals to import satellites and other dual-use products from partners other than Russia.That would accelerate a downward trend in imports of Russian weapons, whose value fell to just $72mn last year (30% of overall imports) from a 2014 peak of $1bn, which that year was nearly 90% of the total, according to SIPRI.Imports from Russia have dropped every year since then, except last year, when they slightly recovered after the 2020 nadir. That year, the Covid-19 pandemic reduced Vietnam’s military imports to only $32mn, of which $9mn worth were Russian arms.Vietnam has in recent years bought military gear from new suppliers, including the United States, Israel, The Netherlands and South Korea, SIPRI data show.With the war in Ukraine, which Russia calls a “special operation”, Vietnam appears to have sped up diversification. — Reuters

The world heaved a sigh of relief when the feared “red wave” of Republican victories in the US midterms failed to materialise. While the Republicans took the House of Representatives by a narrow margin, the Democrats held on to the Senate. American voters seemed to reject Republican extremism and hypocrisy, denying victories to the many Donald Trump-backed candidates who had lied about the outcome of the 2020 election and called into question fundamental democratic principles.To be sure, there is always a danger of misreading an election outcome, given the complexity of factors motivating individuals’ votes. But from my perspective, the average rational voter will have recognised the Democrats’ historic successes from the past two years. Thanks to US President Joe Biden’s recovery bill (the American Rescue Plan), the United States had the strongest recovery of any of the world’s advanced economies, reducing childhood poverty by almost half in the space of a year.Biden also oversaw the passage of the first major infrastructure bill in decades; America’s first major legislative response to climate change, the Inflation Reduction Act; and a major industrial-policy bill, the CHIPS and Science Act, which explicitly recognises the government’s key role in shaping the economy. And these landmark bills all passed despite a historically unwieldy Congress.Nor were Biden’s accomplishments limited to legislation. He appointed the first black woman to the US Supreme Court, and he issued executive orders to alleviate student-loan debt, to improve antitrust enforcement, and to update financial regulations for the era of climate change. He brought America back into the Paris climate agreement and made notable gains in restoring American leadership on the world stage. Though he has gotten very little credit for it, history will likely show that his management of the Russia-Ukraine issue has been masterful.Now that the American electorate appears to have rejected Republican extremism, some will argue that Biden should tack right to capture the elusive middle. But that is the wrong way to read the 2022 midterm result.Centrism is the wrong approach to most other big issues facing voters. It is not left-wing extremism to note that the American economy has not been serving most Americans. And the sense of injustice is compounded by the fact that we should be doing much better than we are. The US is an extraordinarily wealthy country, and far wealthier than many other countries that are providing better living conditions for their citizens. America’s failures are a matter of choice. Or, more accurately, they are the result of decisions made by a political system that does not reflect the interests of the majority of its citizens, because it has been captured to serve special interests.Hence, while an overwhelming majority of Americans believe that the federal minimum wage should be increased sharply – at least doubled – it has not been raised since 2009. Likewise, most Americans believe that everyone should have access to healthcare as a basic human right, even if they differ over the best way to deliver it. It is also generally agreed that everyone who is able to benefit from a college education should be able to pursue one, regardless of their parents’ income, and without being burdened with tens of thousands of dollars of debt. And all Americans want a secure retirement and access to decent affordable housing.It is not left-wing extremism to demand policy solutions to these problems, or to protect our environment, enhance our economic security, strengthen competition, and ensure that everyone’s voice is heard in our political system. While those on the right try to paint this progressive agenda as radical overreach, most voters aren’t buying it. If anything, the progressive agenda has become a centrist agenda.One basic principle underpinning the progressive agenda is that most big problems – especially in the twenty-first century – are best tackled collectively, rather than individually. Another principle is that successful collective action must be arrived at democratically and inclusively.The isolated farmers of the past may have been rugged individualists, but even they needed collective action to protect themselves from theft and violence, and government regulations to ensure the proper functioning of the markets in which they traded. Today, we face natural disasters, pandemics, and climate change – all threats that transcend individuals and borders.Today’s techno-libertarians ignore all this, because they fail to see – or refuse to accept – that one person’s freedom is likely to be another person’s unfreedom. One person’s right not to wear a mask or not to be vaccinated impinges on another’s right to safety from a contagious virus. An individual’s right to carry an AR-15 has all too often impinged on many other individuals’ right to live. When asked to weigh these rights, most reasonable people will come down clearly on one side.Innovative, well-designed public policy can enhance everyone’s scope of action, radically expanding the realm of freedom. There is a subtle irony here: by forcing people to pay taxes, we can expand the opportunities available to them. Everyone can – and mostly does – benefit. Of course, everyone naturally would prefer that others’ bear the burden of taxes – what economists call the free-rider problem – but even in our divided society, I think there is widespread agreement that those who are more able to pay taxes, by dint of having more, should bear a greater proportion of the burden.The 2022 election shows, at a minimum, that a large share of the electorate wants to move on from Trumpian politics. They sense the challenges ahead, and that we can do a better job of addressing them together through civil, informed debate. Americans are tired of the name-calling and the scare tactics. Whether they realise it or not, most Americans support a progressive agenda and its promise to deliver higher living standards for all. — Project Syndicate? Joseph E Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate in economics, is University Professor at Columbia University and a member of the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation.

In Montreal this fortnight, governments lock heads at the Convention on Biological Diversity’s COP15 summit in the hope for a global deal to put the world’s biodiversity on a path to recovery by 2030. We cannot afford for this conference to be treated as a sideshow or afterthought to COP27. The biodiversity crisis is no less important than the climate crisis, and it is escalating quickly. It must be a top political priority for all countries.Given the current rates of biodiversity loss, some scientists estimate that we are on track to lose three-quarters of the world’s species within only a few centuries. This mass extinction and the ongoing threat to ecosystems and habitats is inextricably linked to climate change. That is why world leaders must come to COP15 with high ambitions and set a mandate for successful negotiations.To succeed, COP15 must not only deliver an agreement on the overall mission. It also must set clearly defined goals and establish concrete plans to protect 30% of all land and ocean areas by 2030. Hopefully, leaders have come to Montreal with both the national plans and the financing needed to advance these objectives.We understand both the value of nature and what we stand to lose when it is eroded. We also have come to appreciate what we can learn from those with the closest relationship to the land. Many indigenous communities had been warning of an ecological crisis for decades, only to have their voices and rights dismissed.Nature loss hurts people everywhere. It is already harming human health, reducing air quality, undermining our ability to grow food or obtain water, exacerbating extreme weather events, and weakening our ability to mitigate or adapt to climate change. These problems make biodiversity loss a security issue. Continued damage to our ecosystems is one of the biggest long-term risks to our societies.As an economic matter, the collapse of certain essential ecosystems is all it would take to push countries like mine into bankruptcy. Consider, for example, that around 75% of food crops rely on animal pollinators such as bees, birds, and butterflies. The loss of all animal pollinators seems unthinkable, yet it is a real threat. And if food becomes scarcer, the poorest will suffer first.Moreover, the destruction of habitats is a serious public-health threat, not least because it is bringing humans and animals into closer and more frequent contact. The World Health Organisation warns that this is both causing existing infectious diseases to spread more quickly and accelerating the emergence of novel zoonotic pathogens.Finally, not only is climate change one of the main drivers of biodiversity loss; the destruction of ecosystems is undermining the planet’s ability to neutralise the effects of greenhouse-gas emissions. South America’s Andean forests, for example, act as critical carbon sinks, absorbing atmospheric carbon dioxide that would otherwise be hastening the pace of global warming.Forests, wetlands, underwater kelp forests, mangroves, and other natural systems also provide protection from extreme weather events such as floods, droughts, heatwaves, and storms, by acting as natural buffers or reservoirs. Biodiversity loss not only makes climate change worse, but also eliminates our best line of defence against it.COP15 offers a major opportunity for governments to achieve a breakthrough – equivalent to the 2015 Paris climate agreement – that unites the world behind one mission: to halt, and ideally reverse, biodiversity loss by the end of this decade.To be sure, the current effort suffers from a lack of high-level political engagement, leading many to question why we have two separate convention processes for issues that go hand in hand. They are right to wonder. Looking ahead, both conventions should come together, in recognition of the fact that climate change and biodiversity loss must be addressed in tandem.In the meantime, though, we cannot afford further delay on setting ambitious targets to protect and restore biodiversity this decade. The recent “loss and damage” agreement at COP27 demonstrated that, with sufficient resolve, countries can work together on seemingly intractable issues. With time running out, world leaders must nurture this spirit of co-operation in Montreal. — Project Syndicate

After a decade of unconstrained growth – when it seemed that a new billionaire was minted every day – the tech industry has finally hit a rough patch. Elon Musk’s erratic behaviour following his takeover of Twitter has left the financially leveraged platform in a precarious state. The crypto exchange FTX’s sudden implosion has vaporised a business that was recently valued at $32bn, taking many other crypto firms with it. Meta (Facebook) is laying off 11,000 people, 13% of its workforce, and Amazon is shedding 10,000.What are we supposed to make of these setbacks? Are they isolated incidents, or signs of structural change?Twitter was already struggling. After taking on debt and overpaying for the platform, Musk immediately began cutting costs, declaring that the company was losing $4mn per day. His first layoffs swept out 80% of the company’s contractors and half of its permanent staff, including key engineers and most of the content-moderation team.Musk then reversed the bans on Donald Trump and thousands of far-right provocateurs, as well as ending the enforcement of rules against “harmful misinformation” about Covid-19 and vaccines. Many advertisers have paused their campaigns to avoid having their brands associated with toxic content. As I write, Twitter is in chaos.As the second-largest crypto exchange, FTX (and its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried) came out of nowhere, built a huge public profile, and then blew up – all in the space of a few years. Details are still emerging, but the bankruptcy specialist now serving as FTX’s CEO (and who previously oversaw Enron’s bankruptcy), says he has never seen “such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy information.” The ripple effects are being felt across the crypto industry.Meta’s layoffs reflect the company’s stalled growth after a meteoric 17-year run. Young people have embraced TikTok, undermining the growth of Meta’s Instagram platform, and Apple has introduced a tool that lets iPhone users opt out of sharing data with platforms like Facebook and Instagram, costing Meta as much as $12.8bn this year. Meanwhile, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made a huge bet on virtual reality, attempting to create a general-purpose operating system for an industry that does not yet exist. The company has already spent $36bn on this vision, with little to show for it.Other tech companies are also retrenching, owing to a broader post-pandemic reversion to the trend line for online retail, as well as disappointing results from some individual products. But more to the point, I believe the global economy is in the early stages of a structural change that will leave the tech industry – the biggest beneficiary of the prior economic regime – particularly vulnerable to disruption.The economic environment of the past decade was ideal for business. Interest rates and inflation across the advanced economies were exceptionally and persistently low. Peaceful relations among major powers underpinned easy access to global markets and sustained supply chains that optimised labour costs.But while prolonged economic stability benefited market leaders in every industry, it lulled executives, investors, and politicians into complacency. Many took on more risk, seemingly without consequence, leading to a mispricing of risk throughout the economy. When the pandemic hit in early 2020, it shocked most of the economy. But lockdowns and quarantines were great for tech companies, which kept hiring through the first half of this year, seemingly unaware that they, too, might be subject to disruption.Russia’s invasion of Ukraine changed everything, catching most corporations and even governments off guard. I believe it will be remembered as the trigger that ushered in a new economic era, with interest rates, inflation, geopolitical tensions, and instability at significantly higher levels than in the past decade. There has been a loss of trust among major powers, and it will be many years before governments are once again willing to subordinate other issues to economic interests.For tech, a new economic environment presents both challenges and opportunities. Many tech businesses will not recover. Crypto, Twitter, and Meta’s best days appear to be behind them. Other tech businesses, probably including Amazon and Apple, will recover, but perhaps more slowly than they would like.Some new opportunities will emerge. Enterprises that are restructuring manufacturing and supply chains will need technology. As workers leverage their newfound bargaining power to demand a greater share of the returns, demand for tech-based automation will likely increase. And as consumers adjust to new economic realities, they will stand to benefit from a range of applications and services that do not exist today.While it may be too much to ask, policymakers should seize this moment to steer the tech industry in more desirable directions. For years, the industry – particularly the social-media platforms – has weakened democracy, undermined public health, and jeopardised public safety. To the extent that policymakers have done anything to rein in the industry, they have focused on privacy and competition – efforts that have accomplished too little and come too late.The focus of policymakers and regulators should shift from symptoms to root causes: namely, the industry’s culture, business models, and structure. The culture of the industry is hyper-focused on speed, scale, and profits, without regard for consumer safety. Too many products – including major Internet platforms, self-driving cars, artificial intelligence, smart devices, crypto, deep fakes, and facial recognition – are simply unsafe. There are no rules requiring tech companies to put consumer safety first; worse, the economic incentives encourage exactly the opposite kind of behaviour.Similarly, the “surveillance capitalism” business model – which uses big data and behavioural economics to manipulate behaviour – is an assault on human autonomy analogous to child labour. And it is an assault that has spread from Internet platforms to many other industries, including healthcare, transportation, and financial services.Finally, the concentration of economic power in the tech industry prevents new ideas and business models from coming to market. With today’s macroeconomic disruption, policymakers have an opportunity to make up for years of laissez-faire policies. Tech companies should be forced to demonstrate safety as a condition of market access. Surveillance capitalism should be banned. Monopolistic business practices must be outlawed, and monopolies broken up.Protecting democracy, public health, and public safety is good politics. It also happens to be the right thing to do. There will never be a better time. — Project Syndicate* Roger McNamee is a co-founder of Elevation Partners and an early investor in Facebook, Google, and Amazon.