HOT AIR BALLOON FLIGHT

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Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good

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November 5, 2021

Fareed: We Have to Think Rationally About Climate

There's been good news on climate lately—including international agreements and positive technological trends—but it's not enough to avert catastrophe, Fareed writes in his latest Washington Post column. Now more than ever, it's important to think clearly about the problem, avoiding both complacency and the paralysis that can be induced by dire predictions.
 
Venture capitalist and climate activist John Doerr's new book, "Speed & Scale: An Action Plan for Solving our Climate Crisis Now," may be "the single best guide" to action, Fareed writes. It offers "a clear, accessible and actionable plan"—one that involves diverse steps for slashing emissions. "We need to embrace hundreds of such efforts, of all kinds," Fareed writes, pointing to renewables, nuclear, and the possibility of transitioning developing economies from coal to natural gas. 
 
As Doerr's book notes, Hawaii successfully transformed itself from relying heavily on fossil fuels to leading on renewables, with laws and rules instituted to encourage the shift. "Now, we need to scale the Hawaii example for the entire world—and fast," Fareed writes. "It's a daunting task, but surely, if Hawaii can do it, others can as well."

Troubling Signs for China's Economy

Though China took a world lead in rebounding from Covid-19 as the only major economy to grow in 2020, lower-than-projected quarterly growth numbers have reflected a subsequent slowdown, with power shortages and viral outbreaks seen as culprits.
 
At Bloomberg, Shuli Ren suggests there's more going on, as "[t]hese days, Chinese investors talk obsessively about stagflation, economic sanctions—and wartime survival skills." A strict and "temperamental" QR-code system restricting citizens' movements (to prevent the spread of Covid-19) has proved to be "a prescription for more economic disruption," Ren writes; the damage of US sanctions on Huawei have turned some investors away from tech and toward "staples"; and a government edict to local officials about ensuring there's enough food for winter was taken by some as a harbinger of war with Taiwan. As Ren tells it, a hardship-economy mood seems to have emerged in some corners. 

Europe's Far Right Has Failed to Capitalize on the Pandemic

Far-right parties in Europe have aligned themselves against Covid-19 restrictions and vaccine mandates, some of which have prompted violent protests against government's heavy hand. But Frida Ghitis writes for the World Politics Review that a mix of local and national elections in Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands has shown that despite the agita of a passionate core, far-right parties' approach to Covid-19 has not resonated widely, as they've lost ground at the ballot box.
 
"There is certainly no sign that rejecting pandemic response measures has benefited any far-right European party as much as opposition to refugees did half a decade ago," Ghitis writes. "Whether a similar dynamic will play out in the United States, where a significant number of political figures are using the same playbook, remains to be seen."

China's Weird Propaganda About Covid-19

Propaganda doesn't have to be believable to spread online or to do a government's dirty work, Gordon G. Chang wrote recently in the current issue of Hoover Digest. As the Covid-19 pandemic has proceeded, Beijing has "suggest[ed]—maliciously, without factual foundation—that the disease originated in the US Army's Fort Detrick, in Frederick, Maryland," Chang writes, pointing to articles in state-aligned publications, a Foreign Ministry official's public comment, and amplification on Twitter in myriad languages. 
 
The theory spread "fast" in China and was disseminated more widely with apparent purpose, Chang writes, warning that its persistence shows democracies have ceded ground in an online-information struggle.

Biden Is Looking Vulnerable

A small handful of election results have observers of US politics in a tizzy: Republicans overtook Democrats in the key state of Virginia, sweeping the statewide races there on Tuesday—most notably its governorship—and gave Democrats a close contest for governor in usually blue New Jersey, as Nathaniel Rakich details at FiveThirtyEight.
 
These so-called "off-year" elections—held in odd-numbered years, unlike US congressional or presidential races—are often read as tea leaves for future votes. (In 2009 and 2013, analogous elections predicted nationwide congressional results in the following years, more or less.) This time, Democrats' bad off-year results accompany low ratings for US President Joe Biden, and analysts are voicing serious concerns about his prospects. Across the Atlantic, The Spectator's Freddy Gray dissects a decline in Biden's job-approval ratings, which has coincided with the disastrous Afghanistan pullout and Biden's domestic-spending agenda stalling in Congress, while the Financial Times editorial board urges Biden to "salvage his presidency."
 
To many, Biden looks extremely vulnerable. He defeated a historically unpopular rival in former President Donald Trump in 2020, but the two men are now statistically tied, in terms of how many Americans currently view them positively. (That figure is 40% for Biden and 38% for Trump, according to recent polling by NBC, a non-difference given the survey's error margin.) At CNN, Frida Ghitis writes of a worrisome caveat for Republicans, as they surged in Tuesday's contests by keeping Trump "at arms' length"—something they probably can't repeat in the future, if Trump is on the ballot. But at The Atlantic, David Frum recently offered a valuable and straightforward reminder for 2024: Trump has a good shot at returning to power.