Analysis in new report from the Australian National University’s Centre for Climate & Energy Policy shows that producing hydrogen from fossil fuels carries significant risks, and is likely to be incompatible with decarbonisation objectives. These findings have big implications as Australia looks to become a ‘hydrogen superpower’.
Read more
George Floyd’s death has had an international impact and the vision of him dying shocked people everywhere. For outsiders this trial is an small insight into the reality of systemic racism. It not only occasionally kills. It is a constant presence. It puts whole communities in a state of perpetual preparedness, where the worst is always to be anticipated.
Read more
In ‘It’s still hard to be America’s ally’, Richard Fontaine writes about the post-Trump challenges for US allies. Biden’s welcome celebration of US alliances, he writes, raises its own set of ambiguities and contradictions which pose new dilemmas for long-term allies.
Read more
The enormous military power of America will continue to make alliances with it attractive. But the Europeans and East Asians will strive to balance their alliances with their economic entanglement with China. America might find diplomatic support against China, but will in all likelihood find itself alone in a war with China in East Asia.
Read more
On Wednesday 31 March 2021, US President Joe Biden announced a plan described as “the largest American jobs investment since World War Two” – intended to “create millions of jobs”, “grow the economy”, “make [America] more competitive”, “promote [US] national security interests, and put [the ¨US] in a position to win the global competition with China”.
Read more
On 1 April 2021, Australia’s Emissions Reduction Minister said at the International Energy Agency’s ‘COP26 Net-Zero Summit’ that “removing the price difference between current technologies and low or zero carbon solutions is the key to widespread global adoption” of low emissions technology – and that Australia was focusing on reducing the cost of ‘clean’ hydrogen.
Read more
The Biden administration’s approach to China is shaping up as a continuation of the Trump administration’s “strategic competition”. But will strategic competition with China under Biden mean a shift from the malign competition – where each country seeks to undermine rather than outperform the other – that was typical under Trump towards a more benign competition?
Read more
Author: Yasmeen Serhan | Published 30 March 2021 | The Atlantic The view is frequently expressed that Russia and China are engaging in ‘vaccine diplomacy’ and a ‘vaccine war of influence’; that their capacity to supply Covid-19 vaccines is “being leveraged as a form of soft power to bolster the countries’ global standing”. In this article Yasmeen Serhan suggests that while “U.S. and European leaders might not like it, they are effectively complaining about a
Read more
Iran and China have signed a 25-year wide-ranging cooperation agreement referred to as the ‘Comprehensive Strategic Partnership’. The agreement has long been under development, but the signing comes as both countries remain under US sanctions.
Read more
US President Biden has today [26 March 2021] invited 40 world leaders to the ‘Leaders Summit on Climate’ he intends to host on 22 and 23 April 2021.
Read more
A new peer-reviewed study has found that the vast majority of Australian voters support climate action, but also highlights that more will need to be done to counter the fact that support for strong climate policy action may be limited by voters’ preparedness to incur personal costs, especially among older and conservative voters.
Read more
It is reported that North Korea’s claim that it had launched a new type of tactical short-range ballistic missile has highlighted military advances by the nuclear-armed state and propelled it to the top of new U.S. President Joe Biden’s foreign policy agenda.
Read more
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken addressed NATO members in Brussels on Wednesday 24 March 2021 calling on them to work with the US to counter China. However in a shift of tone from that of recent weeks, he also said that the US “won’t force allies into an ‘us-or-them’ choice with China,” and acknowledged that the US knows “that our allies have complex relationships with China that won’t always align perfectly”.
Read more
On top of a post-pandemic economic revival, global warming, biodiversity loss and environmental degradation inevitably will require disruptive economic and social transformations. Without a citizenry that has a stake in making the sacrifices involved, the changes won’t happen.
Read more
Two-day talks between the US and China, the first under the Biden administration, concluded on 19 March 2021. The unusual exchanges between the delegations were showcased the nature of the tensions between the world’s two largest economies.
Read more
The UK’s much anticipated new security, defence and foreign policy paper, Global Britain in a Competitive Age, sets out the government’s overarching national security and international policy objectives. Reviews have been mixed.
Read more
Russia is to host on Thursday [18 March 2021] the first of three international conferences aimed at jump-starting a stalled Afghanistan peace process ahead of a May 1 deadline for the final withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops from the country.
Read more
Turkey’s President Erdogan told a news conference in Ankara on Tuesday [16 March 2021] that Saudi Arabia is seeking to buy armed unmanned aerial vehicles from Turkey.
Read more
Leaders of the United States, Japan, India and Australia have launched “a landmark partnership to further accelerate the end of the COVID-19 pandemic” in a move widely interpreted as an effort to counter China’s influence in the Asia-Pacific region.
Read more
Rare earth elements (REEs) are vital for communications, the green energy transition and defence. They are produced almost exclusively in China, and it will be very difficult to challenge China’s dominance of the global REE market.
Read more