Friday, October 18, 2013

Russia and the west

A truly excellent round-up of the current situation from the Grauniad. Recommended for all you sophomore (but not sophomoric) diplomats and policy wonks. Juniors and seniors too.

By the way, this is directly connected to sustainability issues. Russia is one of two powerful countries that stand in the way of widening democracy worldwide, the other of course being the Peoples Republic of China.

Lack of democracy -- and I include the weak democracy we currently have in the US in this observation -- is the primary barrier to climate policy. (A truly democratic education is also needed, but that's a whole other debate -- for more of my perhaps distressingly grumpy and radical thinking on these questions, see the STaD Annex.)

But basically, it's not much use reducing emissions in the US and EU, if the Russians and Chinese keep pumping them out faster and faster every year, is it?

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