The wildfires ravaging Los Angeles have killed at least 24 people, displaced 180,000 and scorched about 160km2 — an inferno driven by fierce winds and severe drought in what should be California’s wet season. It is a sobering reminder that the climate crisis is driving wildfires to become more frequent, intense and destructive — leaving ruined lives, homes and livelihoods in their wake.
US President Joe Biden responded by mobilizing federal aid. By contrast US president-elect Donald Trump, a convicted felon who was criminally sentenced on Friday, used the disaster to spread disinformation and stoke political division.
The climate crisis knows no national borders. Deadly floods in Spain, Hawaii’s fires and east Africa’s devastating drought show that nowhere is safe from its effects. Countries must work toward the global common interest and beyond their narrow national interests. The scale of the climate emergency is such that there is a case to view all crises through a green lens.
Instead Trump’s denialism works to foment distrust about the science. He is not just aiming to delay the onset of truth. He wants to demolish it.
It is a familiar playbook: The fossil fuel industry knows the reality of the climate emergency, but chooses profit over responsibility, effectively deceiving the public while the planet burns.
The perils of weaponizing doubt should be painfully clear in the week when scientists said last year was the first to pass the symbolic 1.5°C warming threshold, as well as the world’s hottest on record.
Trump’s politicization of climate denial has supercharged it, turning skepticism into a badge of identity.
When denial becomes ideological, facts turn irrelevant. That makes concerted climate action much harder to achieve.
Trump’s return to power will not halt the US’ path to decarbonization, but it will slow it disastrously. An analysis by Carbon Brief in August last year estimated that his return could add 4 billion tonnes of US carbon emissions by 2030 compared with Democrat plans — inflicting US$900 billion in global climate damage.
To grasp its scale, the emissions surge would equal the combined annual output of the EU and Japan, or the emissions of the world’s 140 lowest-emitting countries.
Confronting the climate emergency demands more than facts; it requires dismantling the political machinery that breeds denialism. The link between the current model of economic growth and the depth of environmental collapse is undeniable. Yet in the face of the overwhelming evidence, too many on the political right cling to denial or place blind faith in the free market.
This is an age of “hyper agency” — where billionaires, rogue states and corporations wield almost unchecked power, fueling climate chaos and global instability. The mechanisms meant to hold power to account are being dismantled with ruinous consequences. Without urgent action, the next disaster will not be a warning. It will be irreversible.
While not much can be expected from Trump, the European “green deal” is too small to plug this year’s projected shortfall in private investment, let alone meet EU commitments under the Paris climate agreement. Climate denialism ought to be confronted with bold policies; business must be held accountable for its role in this crisis; and voters need to see through the rightwing populist parties who prioritize profit over the planet.
The next catastrophe is not a distant threat, it is already in motion. Only immediate and determined action can stop global heating from becoming humanity’s undoing.
On Sept. 3 in Tiananmen Square, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) rolled out a parade of new weapons in PLA service that threaten Taiwan — some of that Taiwan is addressing with added and new military investments and some of which it cannot, having to rely on the initiative of allies like the United States. The CCP’s goal of replacing US leadership on the global stage was advanced by the military parade, but also by China hosting in Tianjin an August 31-Sept. 1 summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which since 2001 has specialized
In an article published by the Harvard Kennedy School, renowned historian of modern China Rana Mitter used a structured question-and-answer format to deepen the understanding of the relationship between Taiwan and China. Mitter highlights the differences between the repressive and authoritarian People’s Republic of China and the vibrant democracy that exists in Taiwan, saying that Taiwan and China “have had an interconnected relationship that has been both close and contentious at times.” However, his description of the history — before and after 1945 — contains significant flaws. First, he writes that “Taiwan was always broadly regarded by the imperial dynasties of
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will stop at nothing to weaken Taiwan’s sovereignty, going as far as to create complete falsehoods. That the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has never ruled Taiwan is an objective fact. To refute this, Beijing has tried to assert “jurisdiction” over Taiwan, pointing to its military exercises around the nation as “proof.” That is an outright lie: If the PRC had jurisdiction over Taiwan, it could simply have issued decrees. Instead, it needs to perform a show of force around the nation to demonstrate its fantasy. Its actions prove the exact opposite of its assertions. A
A large part of the discourse about Taiwan as a sovereign, independent nation has centered on conventions of international law and international agreements between outside powers — such as between the US, UK, Russia, the Republic of China (ROC) and Japan at the end of World War II, and between the US and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) since recognition of the PRC as the sole representative of China at the UN. Internationally, the narrative on the PRC and Taiwan has changed considerably since the days of the first term of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) of the Democratic
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