Climate change
China’s climate pivot could reshape the economic future
Diplomacy is not always diplomatic. This fact of international life was on full display during the recent meeting of top US and Chinese diplomats in Alaska. It has also frequently…
High hopes and hot air on climate change
Amid a very bad week for news about Covid-19, there was a long-awaited ray of hope about climate. Within an hour of US President Joe Biden’s opening to the Virtual Leaders’…
Timor-Leste’s floods and Covid lockdown aggravate political rifts
The recent floods in Timor-Leste have now caused 45 deaths and some 10,000 people to be displaced, including 7000 in the capital, with widespread damage to roads and bridges, and…
“America’s back” in the Paris Agreement. For how long?
On his first day in office, President Joe Biden signed an executive order for the US to rejoin the Paris Agreement. A new US Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), containing…
Dili floods a costly consequence of poor urban planning
Heavy rains from 29 March to 4 April caused floods and landslides in many parts of Timor-Leste, claiming more than 40 lives, displacing thousands of people and destroying critical…
Washington risks an unsustainable climate policy
A couple of months after the inauguration of the new Biden administration, the 18 March Alaska summit provided the first big test of US-China relations. While most of the talks…
The world sees the climate crisis in Australia’s floods. Do we?
In the late 1980s, while I was a reporter covering one of the mega-cyclones to hit Bangladesh, a government official in Dhaka confided in me that he was fed up with seeing his…
The greening of Bill Gates
Book review: Bill Gates How to Avoid a Climate Disaster (Penguin 2021)
One of the more significant aspects of Bill Gates’ How to Avoid a Climate Disaster is the simple…
Australia’s place in a decarbonising world economy
A welcome change is underway in the international effort to combat dangerous global warming. It will have big implications for the Australian economy.
The United States, European…
Book review: The Ministry for the Future
Book review: Kim Stanley Robinson, The Ministry for the Future (Hachette, 2020)
The Ministry for the Future is a novel set in the near future which describes the disastrous…