Scroll to the top

{{ subpage.title }}

Climate change is "wreaking havoc" on supply chains
Climate change is "wreaking havoc" on supply chains | GZERO Media

Climate change is "wreaking havoc" on supply chains

Climate change is disrupting industries around the world, and that has a major impact on global trade. On GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala lays out the case for diversifying and decentralizing production around the world to build resiliency and reduce risk in global supply chains.

“Climate change is wreaking havoc in so many places,” Okonjo-Iweala says, “If you concentrate your production in any one place, you risk really disrupting things.

Read moreShow less
World trade at risk without globalization, warns WTO chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
World trade at risk without globalization, warns WTO chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala | GZERO Media

World trade at risk without globalization, warns WTO chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

On GZERO World, Ian Bremmer sits down with WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to talk about world trade, the complicated business of moving goods and services across borders around the world.

Read moreShow less
Egypt wants COP27 to be all about implementation
Egypt Wants COP27 To Be All About Implementation | Global Stage | GZERO Media

Egypt wants COP27 to be all about implementation

Later this year, Egypt will be hosting the COP27 Climate Summit. What does the gathering hope to accomplish at such an uncertain time for climate action?

It's time to go from pledges and commitments to implementation, Egyptian Minister for International Cooperation Rania al-Mashat says during a Global Stage livestream conversation hosted by GZERO Media in partnership with Microsoft.

"We want it to be an implementation COP," she explains. "And for that to happen, there needs to be a way for all the private-sector commitments that were made in Glasgow to make their ways to countries. And the only way to do that is if more climate finance ... is presented to actually de-risk some of the private-sector investments."

Read moreShow less
Annie Gugliotta

2021: Groundhog Day in a G-Zero world

Did 2021 actually happen, or are we still stuck in 2020? So many things seem to have barely changed this year. After all, we’re entering yet another holiday season worried about a fresh wave of the pandemic, and uncertain about what comes next for our economies and our politics.

In a lot of ways, the past 365 days feel like a year of unfulfilled promise. Let’s have a look back at what did, and did not happen in 2021.

Read moreShow less

A person dressed as Uncle Sam attends an anti-mandatory coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine protest held outside New York City Hall in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., August 9, 2021.

What We’ll Keep Watching in 2022: The authoritarian plague, climate vs energy crisis, US politics in Georgia

COVID & authoritarianism. Around the world, the pandemic has given national governments vastly greater mandates to manage how their societies and economies work. That has, among other things, created room for authoritarianism to grow and flourish. But there are different views on how that’s happened, and where. On the one hand, undemocratic or illiberal governments used pandemic restrictions to suppress anti-government protests or muzzle critics. Think of China using COVID restrictions to stop the burgeoning Hong Kong protests, or Russia doing the same to crack down on opposition rallies. Freedom House reported this year that the pandemic had contributed to democratic backsliding in 73 countries, the most since 2005. But there are also those who see authoritarian shadows in what democratic governments have done: imposing vaccine mandates, continued lockdowns, and school closures. In the US, a backlash against this has boosted Republicans ahead of next year’s midterms, while fresh lockdowns and mandates have also provoked fierce protests in Europe. There is also the thorny and unresolved question of how to police misinformation. Some Americans think social media platforms are erring on the side of too much content moderation as they struggle with the difficult problem of weeding out dangerous pandemic fake news. Overall, the question of what governments did during the pandemic, and whether it exceeded their mandates, will affect politics and geopolitics deep into 2022.

Read moreShow less

Episode 7: Why biodiversity loss matters to governments and investors


Transcript

Listen: Are global leaders finally taking needed action on environmental issues? Coming out of the COP26 meeting in Glasgow, we've seen governments agree to a certain set of policies to fight climate change. But that isn't the only urgent environmental issue we face. The twin problem of climate change AND biodiversity loss are a serious threat to not just governments, but also investors.

Read moreShow less

U.S. President Joe Biden speaks virtually with Chinese leader Xi Jinping from the White House in Washington, U.S. November 15, 2021.

REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Joe Biden & Xi Jinping talked. US-China tensions remain.

Just hours ago, Joe Biden and Xi Jinping held their first bilateral videoconference together. The three-hour virtual meeting was, as expected, cordial despite sharply diverging views on many issues. (An effusive Biden even managed to elicit something between a Cheshire Cat grin and an outright smile from the famously stone-faced Xi.) Without much detail, both sides agreed to continue working together on climate following their COP26 joint pledge, and to return to normalcy on trade. On Taiwan — by far the prickliest of many prickly topics including Hong Kong and Xinjiang — Xi warned America to not "play with fire" while Biden responded that both countries are responsible for avoiding open conflict over the self-governing island. Nevertheless, the two leaders showed, at least in the brief part of the call that was open to the public, that they can deal with each other face to face in a respectful way, which puts at least some "guardrails" (the precise word Biden mentioned) on a bilateral relationship that is otherwise spiraling in slow motion toward confrontation.

COP26 climate deal: Reasons for hope
COP26 Climate Deal: Reasons for Hope | Quick Take | GZERO Media

COP26 climate deal: Reasons for hope

Ian Bremmer's Quick Take:

Hi, everybody. Ian Bremmer here. Just about to head to Singapore, but before I do, I thought I would give you guys a quick recap on the COP26 summit, couple weeks long in Glasgow.

And I understand that it's fashionable and important to talk about just how immediate and immense the climate crisis is, and that we didn't do enough, and we have more work in front of us, and all that is true, but actually I come away from the last two weeks fairly optimistic in the sense that the acceleration of effort that we're seeing from all corners, I mean there's even more from the central governments than you would've expected, and they were the underperformers, certainly more from the private sector, more from the banks, more from the corporates. And as a consequence, right now, I mean the big headline is that we are still on track for 2.4 degrees centigrade of warming if all of the countries make good on their existing pledges, which is itself unlikely. So we're not really on track for 2.4, it's higher. And that's double where we are right now, 1.2.

Having said that, there are a number of positive things that I think are also getting baked in, not just how much carbon is in the atmosphere. One is that they have decided, the participants of COP26, that they're going to come with new goals next year, as opposed to every five years, which had been the process. So as we're seeing more effort, as we're seeing more progress, we're also seeing stepped up urgency. And the very fact that you will now have a one-year, an annual summit that becomes an action-forcing event, even if it's marked by half measures, will end up getting you a lot more progress. I think that's significant and everyone agreed to that.

Read moreShow less

Subscribe to our free newsletter, GZERO Daily

Latest