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      in World Politics

      Joe Biden Will Face a Much-Changed and Skeptical World

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      Joe Biden was not elected for his positions on foreign policy and national security. Few US presidential candidates are. In his debates with outgoing President Donald Trump prior to the election, those issues were hardly discussed. So, the success or failure of the Biden presidency will not be determined by foreign policy.

      For President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, domestic policy will dominate their time and efforts. Overcoming the coronavirus pandemic, ensuring that newly released vaccines are quickly and effectively administered, and righting a still stressed US economy will be their top priorities in the first year. It is what the American people want and expect. Furthermore, there is America’s worsening and more pernicious longer-term problems: increasing economic inequality, continuing racial injustice and growing political polarization.

      Joe Biden and America’s Second Reconstruction

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      These will be profoundly difficult problems to address successfully, especially as President Biden could face a US Senate controlled by the Republican Party and a thinner Democratic Party majority in the House of Representatives.

      First, Image Repair

      Nevertheless, after four years of an unprecedentedly destructive foreign policy and simply by virtue of the fact he will lead still the world’s most powerful and wealthiest nation, Joe Biden cannot ignore foreign policy. In fact, amidst his formidable domestic challenges, he must confront serious foreign policy challenges vital to America’s interests and to those of its many friends and allies around the world.

      We may already have caught a glimpse of how different Joe Biden’s foreign policy will be from Donald Trump’s, considering the first officials named to his senior foreign policy team: Antony Blinken as secretary of state, Linda Thomas-Greenfield as US ambassador to the UN with cabinet rank, Jake Sullivan as national security adviser, Avril Haines as director of National Intelligence and Katherine Tai as the US trade representative. They are all highly experienced, proven, knowledgeable, principled and committed public servants. Under President Trump, we saw few of those and many more self-interested, self-promoting political hacks and ideologues.

      One of the first jobs Biden must tackle is America’s badly damaged reputation around the world. Donald Trump undermined critical alliances, pointlessly insulted and demeaned allies, abandoned international agreements and institutions, embraced autocrats and dictators from Russia to North Korea, discarded traditional free trade principles and turned America’s back on core values of human rights, democracy and rule of law. In short, it was a side of America no one had ever seen, certainly not in the history of the modern presidency. Most profoundly, it raised the question: Who is America?

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      Joe Biden must try to answer that question, and not just with the eloquent prose of President Barack Obama, under whom he served as vice president. The world expects and will demand to see concrete action, preferably guided by some overarching policy that can show to the world that the United States can still play — and indeed, must play — a leadership role again on the global stage.

      There are some decisions that Joe Biden has indicated he will make right out of the starting block when he takes office on January 20. He will rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement and the World Health Organization. Those are relatively easy and straightforward but also very necessary. He is also likely to make clear in his inauguration address that America will return to be the leading voice for democracy, human rights and rule of law in the world, starting first at home but also unafraid to speak in their defense abroad.

      Then begins the hard part. One priority he has made clear that his administration will take on immediately is reaffirming American membership in and commitment to its alliances and critical partnerships. These constitute America’s competitive advantage in global affairs and remain the heart of its still formidable soft power in the world. After Trump’s destructive practices, Biden will have to appeal to America’s allies in Europe, e.g., NATO and the EU, and in Asia and the Pacific, like Japan, South Korea, Australia and others. And he’ll have to do it with humility, understanding that under his predecessor, America seemingly abandoned principles that had previously united them all.

      China: Work With Allies, Pursue Hard-nosed Diplomacy

      China will be Joe Biden’s biggest challenge. On trade, defense, the South China Sea, Taiwan, cybersecurity, human rights and global leadership, China presents a daunting challenge. We should expect his administration to drive a hard bargain with Beijing but to use a very different approach than his predecessor. Pursued smartly, however, he may be surprised by the inherent advantages America still holds. For example, fortifying the alliances and partnerships as previously mentioned will aid his administration in addressing the China challenge. In fact, if he is to succeed on this account, he will need those allies and partners with him at the negotiating table. Another advantage: He will likely have bipartisan support in an otherwise partisan Congress for taking a strong position on China.

      Trade is the clearest area where the US can capitalize on its extensive network of allies. China’s most important trading relationships — those with the EU and the East Asian nations — also happen to be America’s closest allies. The most effective approach will be one that joins their efforts with the administration to address China’s aggressive and predatory trade practices. Those range from intellectual property theft to intimidation and threats against foreign businesses to coopting confidential and proprietary techniques, practices and technology. But this approach works only if the new administration can establish that it can be trusted again, and not only on trade. If the US can succeed in its trade negotiations with China, it opens opportunities on other fronts.

      The objective must be clear: The US isn’t interested in standing in China’s way as it progresses to superpower status. However, China must understand that it must do so within an international community governed by collaboratively set rules.

      Renewed US Global Leadership: Climate and Global Health

      Climate and global health are two other priority issues for Biden. He has indicated he will want not only to reestablish America’s commitment to them but also to take the lead. Rejoining the Paris accords won’t be enough. The US must marshal a critical mass of other nations in joining a reinvigorated effort to go beyond the mandates of Paris. In that, he’s likely to garner support from the EU and other developed nations. Appointing former Secretary of State John Kerry as his special envoy on climate change demonstrates Biden’s seriousness about the issue and the intention to take a much-needed lead role on this global existential challenge.

      Embed from Getty Images

      The COVID-19 pandemic raging at home makes it imperative that President-elect Biden make global health security a clear foreign policy priority. If there is one thing Americans have learned from the novel coronavirus, it’s that there is no greater threat to America’s national security and economic prosperity than another pandemic, especially one perhaps more catastrophic than COVID-19. If America is to be better prepared for the next pandemic, so must be the rest of the world.

      As he did for climate, Biden may even wish to name a special envoy for global health to begin galvanizing America’s efforts and those of the rest of the world to prepare and coordinate global initiatives for preventing, containing and treating the next pandemic.

      Climate and global health present the Biden administration with just the sort of challenge-cum-opportunity to which America was known to rise in the past. They are issues on which it is uniquely positioned to lead by virtue of its power, size, wealth and technological prowess. To reassume the mantle of global leadership, President-elect Biden must lead the global effort to combat climate change and strengthen the international community’s capacity to address pandemics.

      In the Middle East, Iran and Then Everything Else

      Unlike for the US administrations dating back to Jimmy Carter, the Middle East will not be a top-five priority in 2021. Americans have lost their appetite for inserting themselves into problems that the region’s residents cannot or will not work to resolve themselves. Biden and his foreign policy team recognize this, even as they know they can’t turn their backs on this dangerously volatile region.

      But there remains one exception. Iran is a grave problem, perhaps less for the US than for Washington’s allies in the Middle East, most especially Israel and Saudi Arabia. It also constitutes a major challenge to America’s traditionally unflinching support for the Nonproliferation Treaty. Nothing could be more destabilizing in that region than the introduction of nuclear weapons. It will require almost immediate attention from President Biden.

      The Trump administration’s policy of “maximum pressure” via its punishing sanctions has indeed inflicted enormous economic pain on Iran and its people. But it hasn’t changed Tehran’s behavior. Iran today has begun to reconstitute the nuclear program that had been effectively contained under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), negotiated under President Obama in 2015 and then abandoned by Trump in 2018.

      The purpose of the sanctions cannot be inflicting pain on the Iranian people, who are not responsible for their government’s policies. The objective of sanctions and an overall policy toward Iran must be to change its behavior. By that measurement, the Trump administration’s pressure campaign has not worked. Iran continues to: develop and build longer-range missiles; support malign behavior through the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Shia proxies throughout the region, from Iraq and Yemen to Syria and Lebanon; senselessly threaten Israel; and deny the most basic human rights to its own citizens, most especially women, journalists, perceived political opponents and religious minorities.

      Whatever trust President Obama and then-Secretary of State Kerry may have been able to build with the Iranians in reaching the JCPOA has been largely destroyed now. So, short of immediately rejoining that agreement, which would be unwise, face-to-face negotiations between Washington and Tehran will not be in the offing for at least one year.

      Embed from Getty Images

      In fact, to tackle the Iran question, Biden and Blinken must address the failures of the Obama approach. That will mean: (a) turning to America’s P5+1 partners — the UK, France and Germany — to work out a modus operandi for rejoining the JCPOA while simultaneously securing a commitment to negotiate a stronger JCPOA version 2.0; (b) consulting regularly and frequently with key regional allies to ensure their concerns and interests are addressed in any follow-on agreement with Tehran; and, most important, (c) including key congressional members in the negotiation process, at least on the Washington end. The last is most vital because the absence of Congressional support was ultimately Barack Obama and the agreement’s downfall. Any new accord negotiated must have the support of a majority of the Congress if it is to avoid the fate of the JCPOA, even it isn’t submitted for formal approval to the Congress. All of these are sine qua non for successfully addressing the Iranian challenge and securing a durable solution.

      While the Iran portfolio remains an urgent priority for Joe Biden, it won’t be one resolved in his first year and perhaps not until well into his second. His administration and the Congress must understand that the US cannot not sanction, bomb, assassinate or otherwise forcibly compel Iran into complying with its norms for behavior. It will take patient, deliberate and determined diplomacy.

      Can’t Ignore the Rest

      These are likely to be President Biden’s top priorities. But they won’t be his only ones. His administration and the US also face serious challenges from a menacing and malign Russia, an arms control agreement with whom due to expire within weeks of his taking office; still extant terrorism and cybersecurity threats; a wave of autocrats with a full head of steam, from Turkey and Hungary to Venezuela and the Philippines; ill-behaved and irrationally aggressive regional actors vying for preeminence in the Middle East; continuing conflict and humanitarian crises in the Middle East, Africa and the Caucasus and elsewhere.

      Joe Biden will be the most experienced and knowledgeable president on foreign policy since George H.W. Bush. As such, he surely knows that it is issues like these that can suddenly rise to crisis proportions and take over his foreign policy or even his presidency. So, they won’t be far from his attention. But a clear-eyed view of what is most important will drive Biden toward those highlighted above.

      However, there is likely to be a critically important domestic component of the Biden foreign policy agenda. This gets to the Achilles heel of previous administrations’ foreign policies that Donald Trump cleverly exploited. Biden and his administration must be able to convincingly articulate to the American people a foreign policy that they will see as in their interests. That will mean a policy that protects American jobs, addresses threats to climate and the environment, ensures security and offers a promise of a better future.

      Crafting a policy that meets these criteria may be Joe Biden’s biggest challenge, especially in view of the historic disconnect between foreign policy and the American people and polarization of the American public exacerbated by four years of Donald Trump. But if this administration is to be successful in confronting and capitalizing on America’s many challenges abroad, it must be able to show that it holds the interests of Americans uppermost — and that they stand behind this policy.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in UK Politics

      Government will invest £1bn in ‘sucking’ carbon out of industrial plants

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      The carbon capture technology will be installed at four major industrial sites in the UK by 2030 as part of a plan to create a series of low-carbon “clusters” in the decade ahead.Many experts believe carbon capture is an essential part of tackling the climate emergency, but the technology remains new, expensive and largely untested. Once CO2 has been captured, it can be compressed and pumped underground to be stored in depleted oil and gas reservoirs.The announcement comes as the government publishes its energy white paper, which outlines proposals to create 220,000 jobs in the next 10 years.The white paper pledges £1.3bn to accelerate the rollout of electric vehicle charging points, and also outlines a plan to develop 40 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030.Consumers will be automatically switched to cheaper tariffs for their energy bills under a proposed crackdown on “loyalty penalties”. Millions of households in the UK are believed to be stuck on standard variable tariffs, likely paying more than they need to.The proposed legislation is aimed at generating emission-free electricity by 2050. Business and energy secretary Alok Sharma promised a “decisive and permanent” shift away from the UK’s current dependence on fossil fuels.“Through a major programme of investment and reform, we are determined to both decarbonise our economy in the most cost-effective way, while creating new sunrise industries and revitalising our industrial heartlands that will support new green jobs for generations to come,” he said.
      Despite hopes gas boilers could soon be phased out, manufacturers will still be able to sell the fossil fuel-dependent heating system for homes for up to 15 years. The white paper states that by “the mid-2030s” the government expects all newly-installed heating systems to be low carbon.The white paper will also include measures on establishing a new UK emissions trading scheme from 1 January, which the government claimed would be more ambitious than the current EU scheme it replaces. “It will be the world’s first net-zero carbon cap and trade market,” the government said.
      Climate change around the world – in picturesShow all 17 More

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      in US Politics

      US to hold world climate summit early next year and seek to rejoin Paris accord

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      The US will hold a climate summit of the world’s major economies early next year, within 100 days of Joe Biden taking office, and seek to rejoin the Paris agreement on the first day of his presidency, in a boost to international climate action.Leaders from 75 countries met without the US in a virtual Climate Ambition Summit co-hosted by the UN, the UK and France at the weekend, marking the fifth anniversary of the Paris accord. The absence of the US underlined the need for more countries, including other major economies such as Brazil, Russia and Indonesia, to make fresh commitments on tackling the climate crisis.Biden said in a statement: “I’ll immediately start working with my counterparts around the world to do all that we possibly can, including by convening the leaders of major economies for a climate summit within my first 100 days in office … We’ll elevate the incredible work cities, states and businesses have been doing to help reduce emissions and build a cleaner future. We’ll listen to and engage closely with the activists, including young people, who have continued to sound the alarm and demand change from those in power.”He reiterated his pledge to put the US on a path to net zero carbon emissions by 2050, and said the move would be good for the US economy and workers. “We’ll do all of this knowing that we have before us an enormous economic opportunity to create jobs and prosperity at home and export clean American-made products around the world.”António Guterres, the UN secretary general, said: “It is a very important signal. We look forward to a very active US leadership in climate action from now on as US leadership is absolutely essential. The US is the largest economy in the world, it’s absolutely essential for our goals to be reached.”Donald Trump, whose withdrawal of the US from the Paris agreement took effect on the day after the US election in November, shunned the Climate Ambition Summit. Countries including Russia, Saudi Arabia and Mexico were excluded as they had failed to commit to climate targets in line with the Paris accord. Australia’s prime minister, Scott Morrison, had sought to join the summit but his commitments were judged inadequate, and an announcement from Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, of a net zero target just before the summit was derided as lacking credibility.The Climate Ambition Summit failed to produce a major breakthrough, but more than 70 countries gave further details of plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in line with the Paris agreement goal of limiting temperature rises to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels, with an aspirational 1.5C limit.Many observers had hoped India might set a net zero emissions target, but its prime minister, Narendra Modi, promised only to “exceed expectations” by the centenary of India’s independence in 2047. China gave some details to its plan to cause emissions to peak before the end of this decade but stopped short of agreeing to curb its planned expansion of coal-fired power.The UK pledged to stop funding fossil fuel development overseas, and the EU set out its plan to reduce emissions by 55% by 2030, compared with 1990 levels.Alok Sharma, the UK’s business secretary, who will preside over UN climate talks called Cop26 next year, said much more action was needed. “[People] will ask: have we done enough to put the world on track to limit warming to 1.5C and protect people and nature from the effects of climate change? We must be honest with ourselves – the answer to that is currently no,” he said.When Biden’s pledge to bring the US to net zero emissions by 2050 is included, countries accounting for more than two-thirds of global emissions are subject to net zero targets around mid-century, including the EU, the UK, Japan and South Korea. China has pledged to meet net zero by 2060, and a large number of smaller developing countries have also embraced the goal.The task for the next year, before the Cop26 conference in Glasgow next November, will be to encourage all the world’s remaining countries – including oil-dependent economies such as Russia and Saudi Arabia – to sign up to long-term net zero targets, and to ensure that all countries also have detailed plans for cutting emissions within the next decade.Those detailed national plans, called nationally determined contributions (NDCs), are the bedrock of the Paris agreement, setting out emissions curbs by 2030. Current NDCs, submitted in 2015, would lead to more than 3C of warming, so all countries must submit fresh plans in line with a long-term goal of net zero emissions. The US will be closely watched for its plans.Nathaniel Keohane, a senior vice-president at the Environmental Defense Fund, said: “The [Climate Ambition] Summit captured and reflected the momentum of recent months, but didn’t push much beyond it. The world is waiting for Biden to bring the US back into the Paris agreement, and will be looking for how ambitious the US is willing to be in its NDC.” More

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      in World Politics

      Live Free or Die: America vs. Science

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      A few days ago, the testimony of a nurse from South Dakota made international headlines. In a tweet, Jodi Doering recounted the harrowing experience of having to deal with patients dying from COVID-19 complications while denying that the virus is real: “The ones who scream at you for a magic medicine and that Joe Biden is (g)oing to ruin the USA. All while gasping for breath on 100% Vapotherm. They tell you there must be another reason they are sick. They call you names and ask why you have to wear all that ‘stuff’ because they don’t have COViD because it’s not real.”

      Donald Trump’s Treason Against the American People

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      By now, North and South Dakotas have earned the distinction of being among the states hit hardest by the second wave of the pandemic — and least prepared for its impact. As in so many of America’s red states dominated by the Republican Party, the good citizens of the Dakotas largely ignored reality, and this is putting it graciously. As a recent article in The New York Times put it, “Deep into the coronavirus pandemic, when there was no doubt about the damage that Covid-19 could do, the Dakotas scaled their morbid heights, propelled by denial and defiance.” Public officials did their part reinforcing the illusion, adamantly refusing to mandate basic safety measures, such as the wearing of masks and keeping social distancing rules.

      Live Free or Die

      “Live Free or Die” — ironically enough, the motto of the blue state of New Hampshire in New England — assumed an entirely new meaning in the Dakotas. At the end of November, the Bismarck Tribune reported that a quarter of North Dakotans had known somebody who had died of COVID-19. At the start of this month, just three weeks after reporting the highest mortality rate in the world, North Dakota hit a new record: One in 800 residents here has died of COVID-19.

      In South Dakota, where the governor refused to mandate safety measures, things were equally bad. Intensive care units in small towns were quickly getting overwhelmed as the pandemic ravaged the very fabric of civil society, which observers such as Alex de Tocqueville have considered essential to the health of American democracy. And yet,  as Annie Gowan writes in The Washington Post, “anti-maskers” have continued to agitate, “alleging that masks don’t work and that the measure was an overreach that would violate their civil rights.” Given the fact that wearing a mask is above all a means to protect others against infection, this is a rather specious argument.

      Embed from Getty Images

      There has been widespread resistance to following the most basic safety precautions. Clinging on to a false sense of liberty is one reason, but arguably not the most important one. Instead, what infuses the refusal to take COVID-19 seriously among a substantial part of the American public is a profound suspicion toward health care experts, the scientific community and science-based evidence in general.

      This is part of a larger populist syndrome, which has suffused significant parts of the United States over the past several years and which was instrumental in propelling Donald Trump into the White House four years ago. Populism represents above all a revolt against the established elite — economic, political, social, cultural — in the name of ordinary citizens and their allegedly superior “common sense.”  Populists promote the virtue of personal experience and observation — Trump famously asked how global warming could be real if it was so cold outside — and the rule of thumb.

      Add to that the impact of right-wing influencers and opinion leaders like Rush Limbaugh, who in early spring claimed that COVID-19 was nothing more than the flu and who has insisted that masks are a symbol of fear and therefore “un-American.” No wonder that in the land of the free, that vast landmass between the two coasts, disparaged by the “coastal elites” as “flyover country,” they rather believe in the wisdom of Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and the Great Man himself than the “disaster” Anthony Fauci and his “idiots” in the scientific community.

      As a result, according to a recent Pew survey, in the United States, public opinion about COVID-19 has been far more divided than in comparable advanced liberal democracies. In October, more than 80% of Biden supporters said that COVID-19 was “very important” for their vote; among Trump supporters, less than a quarter. At the same time, there was a large partisan divide on trust in scientists. In September, more than two-thirds of liberal Democrats expressed trust in scientists; among conservative Republicans, less than 20%.

      Under the circumstances, the health care catastrophe that has invested the Dakotas and other parts of the American Midwest should come as no surprise. It is part of the disastrous legacy four years of President Trump have left, a legacy that has poisoned the political climate to an extent never before seen in the United States.

      Human, All Too Human

      Over the past several months, COVID-19 — what it is, what it means and how to respond to it —has become part of the polarization that has consumed American politics way before the onset of the pandemic. Polarization means that almost everything political is defined in partisan terms. Extended to its most extreme, it means that the other side is no longer seen as legitimate, but as the enemy that needs to be destroyed since it poses a fundamental threat to the common good.

      This, of course, is the fundamental dictum of Carl Schmitt, the brilliant 19th-century German legal and political theorist whose posthumous influence has significantly grown over the past few decades, both on the left and on the right. Schmitt was a great supporter of the Nazis, infamous for his defense of Hitler’s order in 1934 to eliminate his adversaries (the Röhm Purge) in an article with the cynical title, “The Führer Protects the Law.” Central to Schmitt’s thinking was the notion that democracy meant both to treat equals as equals and to treat not-equals as not-equals. For Schmitt, democracy required homogeneity as well as the exclusion, even “destruction of the heterogeneous.” No wonder Carl Schmitt has found enthusiastic acolytes among China’s patriotic intelligentsia.

      It is within this context that the dismissal of the threat posed by COVID-19 as, at best, negligible and, at worst, as a hoax designed to undermine the Trump administration becomes understandable.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Throughout his presidency, Donald Trump has been obsessed with China. Trump’s pet project of making America great again only makes sense in the face of the challenge that the fulminant rise of China has posed to America’s claim to be the greatest country in the world. The way the slogan is phrased already reveals its weakness. Making America great “again” implies a recognition that it no longer is. There are numerous reasons why this might be the case. Most of them — such as decrepit infrastructure or the opioid crisis — have nothing to do with China.

      But, as Friedrich Nietzsche once put it, it is human, all too human to blame others for one’s own shortcomings. This might explain why Trump has insisted on referring to COVID-19 as the “China virus,” most recently in a tweet acknowledging that Rudy Giuliani, his personal lawyer who had “been working tirelessly exposing the most corrupt election (by far!) in the history of the USA” had been tested positive for the “China Virus.” Giuliani has done no such thing, i.e., exposing massive election fraud. Giuliani once was a respectable politician, arguably one of the best mayors New York City has ever had. By now, he is reminiscent of Wormtail, Voldemort’s pathetic factotum.

      Trump’s obsession with China not only explains his nonchalance toward COVID-19 but also his take on climate change and global warming. It deserves remembering that at one time, Trump was adamant about his concern regarding the climate. In 2009, Trump, together with his three oldest children, signed an open letter to the Obama administration that stated, “If we fail to act now, it is scientifically irrefutable that there will be catastrophic and irreversible consequences for humanity and our planet.” Among other things, the letter called for “U.S. climate legislation, investment in the clean energy economy, and leadership to inspire the rest of the world to join the fight against climate change.”

      I Don’t Believe It

      A couple of years later, all was forgotten. By 2012, the focus was on China’s rapid ascent. In this context, global warming assumed a new meaning in Trump’s narrative. As he put it in a tweet at the time, the “concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” Three years later, he referred to climate change as a hoax, and, once in office, he dismissed the warnings of his own government’s scientists with a simple “I don’t believe it.”

      Trump’s denial of climate change had a significant impact among his support base. In 2018, more than two-thirds of Republicans considered concerns about global warming to be exaggerated; among Democrats, less than 5% thought so. Around a third of Republicans thought global warming was caused by human activities; among Democrats, some 90%. And when asked whether they thought global warming would pose a serious threat in their lifetime, a mere 18% of Republicans voiced concern among Democrats, about two-thirds.

      A month before the November election, an article in Nature sounded the alarm bell. As the election approached, the author warned, “Trump’s actions in the face of COVID-19 are just one example of the damage he has inflicted on science and its institutions over the past four years, with repercussions for lives and livelihoods.” In the process, his administration, across many federal agencies, had “undermined scientific integrity by suppressing or distorting evidence to support political decisions.”

      In November, Trump spectacularly lost his bid for a second term. At the end of January, Joe Biden will be inaugurated as the new president. There is great hope that this will be the beginning of a “new dawn for America.” Don’t bet on it. Trump’s legacy is likely to linger on, some of the harm his administration has caused potentially exerting its impact for years to come. One of the most deleterious legacies is that by now, belief in science — at least with respect to certain issues — has become overridden by partisanship.

      Climate change is a prominent example, so is COVID-19, and so is likely to be the question of vaccination as anti-coronavirus jabs become available over the next few months. In late November, among Democrats, 75% said they would get vaccinated; among Republicans, only half. Under the circumstances, it is probably prudent to be wary.

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in Elections

      New Trump Rule Would Downgrade Health Benefits in Air Pollution Decisions

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      State Certified Vote Totals

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      in Elections

      Trump Administration Is Planting Loyalists in Biden Transition Meetings

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Presidential TransitionliveLatest UpdatesFormal Transition BeginsBiden’s CabinetDefense SecretaryElection ResultsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTrump Administration Is Planting Loyalists in Biden Transition MeetingsSupporters of the president are monitoring many of the conversations between Biden teams and civil servants, chilling the flow of information.Trump allies have been joining and monitoring transition conversations at the Environmental Protection Agency.Credit…Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesBy More

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      in UK Politics

      Alok Sharma facing ‘impossible ask’ juggling Cop26 presidency with Brexit and Covid duties, says Amber Rudd

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      Alok Sharma is facing an “impossible ask” juggling his duties as Cop26 president and secretary of state for business, Amber Rudd has said.
      The former home secretary and climate minister said she did not see how Mr Sharma could make the upcoming UN climate talks a “success” while also trying to run the business department at a time when the UK is facing a pandemic and an imminent exit from the EU.
      Speaking at a press briefing alongside Laurent Fabius, the president of Cop21 held in Paris, she said: “When I look at the work that Laurent Fabius did, I don’t think he was trying to run business in the UK in the time of the pandemic, trying to reassure businesses as we leave our largest trading bloc, [and] trying to put together legislation to ensure there isn’t queues at the border.
      “It seems to me an extraordinary ask of Alok Sharma that he can put in the effort, the work, the thought, the corralling of different interests and make Cop a success while doing all those things. I don’t know who thinks that’s possible? It just seems an impossible ask.”
      She added: “I recognise the absurdity of potentially changing COP president, but if not now, when?”
      The UK is due to host the next round of UN climate talks, known as Cop26, next year in Glasgow. The talks will be pivotal for raising ambition on tackling the climate crisis, experts say.
      Mr Sharma was appointed president of the talks in February after the former president-to-be Claire O’Neill was axed from the role.  Yesterday, Ms O’Neill told a parliamentary committee that Boris Johnson’s government had “no sense” of the seriousness of hosting the UN climate talks while she was still in her post.“There just did not seem to be any sense of what we were actually doing,” Ms O’Neill told an evidence hearing held by the business, energy and industrial strategy (Beis) committee.
      “This is a deadly serious diplomatic moment on which the future trajectory of CO2 depends. And I don’t think that sense of gravitas had percolated through.”
      She added that she had been advised to “sue for unfair dismissal” and for “gender bias” due to there being “few women” involved in the running of Cop26.
      Speaking today, Ms Rudd said: “I thought that Claire O’Neill was an inspired choice as president for Cop, and I was very sad when she resigned, or fell under the destructive gaze of Dominic Cummings, shall we say, and left.”
      She added that the cut to overseas aid announced in the chancellor’s recent spending review suggested that the government was not taking its role as host of Cop26 “seriously enough”.“A country that really understood the seriousness and the honour and the responsibility of hosting Cop26 next year would not be cutting its international aid right now,” she said.
      “As a former secretary of state, when you need additional money for something that is this government’s priority, in this case Cop26 … being able to have access to the overseas development aid money … was a huge help to be able to deliver on commitments to help other countries industrialise.”Her comments come a day after a senior Conservative politician told BBC News that somebody with a bigger profile was needed to successfully lead the climate talks.Tobias Ellwood, the former Foreign Office minister who chairs the Commons defence committee, told BBC News: “It’s got to be the likes of David Cameron, William Hague, somebody of that order that is familiar with the international scene.”Ms Rudd ruled herself out of taking up the role at today’s press briefing, which was organised by the non-profit Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit.The briefing on Cop26 and the upcoming Climate Action Summit on 12 December also included comments from Prof Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) and Adair Turner, senior fellow at the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET).A government spokesperson said on Tuesday: “As Cop26 President, Alok Sharma is coordinating efforts to drive action on climate change across the globe ahead of the UK hosting the Cop26 climate conference next year. This includes engaging directly with over 40 governments as well as attending dozens of major international events virtually to bring the world together to focus on tackling climate change.“The world is responding to the immediate and acute challenges posed by coronavirus, but we recognise that the climate crisis has not taken time off. The UK, along with the UN and France, will host the Climate Ambition Summit later this month to give countries a platform to make commitments.”  More

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      in UK Politics

      Climate crisis: Boris Johnson’s government had ‘no sense of what we were doing’, says ousted Cop president

      by

      Boris Johnson’s government had “no sense” of how seriously it needed to take hosting the upcoming UN climate talks, the former UK Cop president has said.Claire O’Neill, the former energy minister who was axed from the role of Cop president in January, told a parliamentary committee on Tuesday that cabinet ministers had acted “like amateur hour” in the build-up to the talks, which are to be held in Glasgow next year.She said that a former chief adviser to the prime minister had told her that he did not believe Cop26 needed a president – despite it being a UN statutory role.“There just did not seem to be any sense of what we were actually doing,” she told an evidence hearing held by the business, energy and industrial strategy (Beis) committee.
      “This is a deadly serious diplomatic moment on which the future trajectory of CO2 depends. And I don’t think that sense of gravitas had percolated through,” she added. “I like to think it’s starting to now.”
      Ms O’Neill also told the committee that both Mr Johnson and former prime minister Theresa May were “very, very positive about the idea of hosting the Cop”.But “Beis civil servants did not want to host the Cop and neither did the treasury and that took a lot of persuading”, she said. Their reluctance to host the talks was linked to a perception that it would be too difficult for the UK to take the leading role as a “powerful northern country”, she added.The issues of Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic have so far prevented cabinet ministers from devoting the required attention to the upcoming climate talks, Ms O’Neill said.
      “It really is a whole of government effort if we want to deliver something ambitious,” she said.
      “To his credit, the current prime minister does get involved, what I think has been lacking is a sense of this being job number one for the government because, of course, both with Brexit and Covid, there are other extremely important jobs that need to be taken care of.” More