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Sunday, October 11th, 2020

Everything You Think About the Geopolitics of Climate Change Is Wrong

Author:     JASON BORDOFF
Source:     Foreign Policy
Publication Date:     OCTOBER 5, 2020, 4:43 PM
 Link: Everything You Think About the Geopolitics of Climate Change Is Wrong
Stephan:   None of this will be new to my regular readers, but you don't often see an article that puts this geopolitical meta-view into one coherent package. The transition out of the carbon era is going to turn the world power structure on its head. Countries whose incomes are tied to carbon energy, particularly Russia, 30% of whose GDP is dependent on oil and gas, which makes up 60% of Russian exports will, I think,  go into economic collapse. It won't happen at once, it's a process, but over the next 30 years, unless Russia stops being a kleptocratic oligarchy centered on carbon energy, it's future is quite bleak. And, as the article describes, the effects on the Middle East are going to be both dramatic and potentially traumatic.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia meet at the Al-Yamamah Royal Palace in Riyadh on Oct. 14, 2019. Mikhail Metzel/Tass/Getty

Signs that the energy transition is picking up speed abound. One of the world’s largest oil companies, BP, recently projected oil demand may be close to peaking. The governor of California just signed an executive order to ban the sale of new gasoline-fueled cars by 2035. China, responsible for more than one-quarter of the world’s carbon emissions, pledged to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. And public polling shows a rising sense of urgency about the climate threat, galvanized by raging California wildfires and severe U.S. Gulf Coast hurricanes.

Transforming an industry that has defined the modern era will have profound consequences on the global order. China will rise and petrostates will fall—or so says conventional wisdom. In reality, the geopolitical fallout of a clean energy transition will be far more subtle, complex, and counterintuitive. Many of today’s predictions are likely to turn out wrong, or will take decades to unfold in unpredictable ways. If policymakers […]

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