Rhein on Energy and Climate

Archives for Global Europe

From November 11 to 22, Warsaw will host the 19th UN Climate Conference. It will follow the usual bureaucratic agenda that allows for little time to deal with the essentials. This time, moreover, it will spend more time on “climate adaptation”, a sign that the organisers have increasing doubts about Man’s ability to mitigate climate… » read more

Posted by Eberhard Rhein

The USA is getting serious with tackling climate change. Just in time for the next International Climate Conference in November in Warsaw, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed strict emission standards for new power. To meet these standards, power plants will have to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by about 40% to roughly 500g… » read more

Posted by Eberhard Rhein

Hundreds of thousands Brazilian citizens have taken to the streets in recent weeks to protest against high public transport fares, publicly financed football stadiums, inadequate investments in education and health and, last not least, rampant corruption. High transport fares have been the detonator of these unprecedented demonstrations in one of the most successful emerging countries;… » read more

Posted by Eberhard Rhein

The European internal market is bound to shrink in global relevance whatever economic policy Europe will pursue. Every ambitious European company beyond a certain size that wants to avoid shrinking sales/profits and remain globally competitive has little choice but to operate globally. Global integration will have to go far beyond conventional exports/imports and outsourcing of… » read more

Posted by Eberhard Rhein

Egypt is again in urgent need of reform. It has failed to replace the Mubarak regime by legitimate governance; and its economy, that had shown a remarkable performance during much of the first decade is out of step, with high unemployment, rising inflation, high budget deficits and depreciation of its currency. It had no choice… » read more

Posted by Eberhard Rhein

The 2013 “State of the Union Address” devotes12 lines to climate change. These express a firm determination to “do more to combat climate change”. Visibly, Obama has learned the lessons from his first mandate when he got lost in frustrating battles with the Republican majority in the Congress that failed to understand the reality and… » read more

Posted by Eberhard Rhein

For its energy supply, Humanity depends presently more on the Gulf countries than on any other part of the earth: one third of global oil and one fifth of gas reserves lie there; and production costs are lower than anywhere else. This situation will not be sustainable: The Gulf countries have to envisage a progressive… » read more

Posted by Eberhard Rhein

During the most recent conference of the Group of Non-Aligned countries in Tehran the Iranian President Ayatollah Khamenei and the -first freely elected- Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi have called for a radical renovation of the United Nations. This goes in particular for the Security Council which is no longer representative of the global population and… » read more

Posted by Eberhard Rhein