Opinion

Even if President Joe Biden had no ground to make up — if his predecessor hadn’t pulled the US out of the Paris climate agreement and done his best to stop all progress toward climate protection — he still would have needed an aggressive new target for lowering emissions. The country’s previous Paris commitment was too modest for the US ...

The 2008 crash tested financial globalisation. In 2020, the chaos of the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic led many to question the world’s dependence on complex global supply chains. These last few months, however, as vaccination programmes have taken off in some parts of the world and stalled in others, have raised even deeper doubts about globalisation and the ...

Savings have soared during the pandemic, particular among older Europeans. Barclays Plc estimates that seniors amassed excess savings of 600 billion euros ($722 billion). This would surely provide a boost to Europe’s economy if unleashed upon the high streets. Yet most observers believe much of the cash will remain unspent. What’s behind this hoarding? The region’s negative interest rates are ...

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is fighting (at least) two big political fires. They may not substantially impact the Conservative Party’s fortunes at the May 6 local elections, but these blazes suck oxygen from policy making, undermine public trust and distract from attempts to rebuild and rebalance the British economy as it emerges from the pandemic. What’s worse, the harm to ...

Non-pandemic healthcare hasn’t been much on the agenda during President Joe Biden’s first 100 days. But reducing healthcare costs remains a priority for the public — ranking ahead of addressing racism, crime, immigration or climate change. Democrats’ wariness of the issue is understandable. The public is passionate about healthcare, but also risk-averse. Three of the last four presidents (two of ...

What will come of the array of ambitious (and not-so-ambitious) targets announced by world leaders at President Joe Biden’s climate summit? It’s tempting to think, “Not enough.” Talk is cheap; actions are expensive. About a third of all the greenhouse emissions from human activities in history have happened since 1997, when world leaders adopted the Kyoto Protocol with an ambition ...

It may surprise readers in the northeast to know that Chick-fil-A — the fast food icon of the Bible Belt whose stores are closed on Sundays, with no exceptions — has yet to reopen its dining rooms despite the relatively lax attitude Southern states have towards the pandemic. The lack of dine-in service didn’t stop the company from having its ...

As if we didn’t experience enough Covid shaming in 2020, pundits are now advocating the shaming of vaccine-hesitant people — especially the roughly 40% of Republicans who say they’re in no rush to get the jab. Political outrage has clouded scientific reasoning here. The data show some Republicans are indeed turning down the shots — though the extent of the ...

India, the world’s third-largest oil consumer behind the US and China, was meant to be a major driver of oil’s demand recovery as economies reopened. But the country’s devastating health crisis has made that impossible. Everyone from oil traders to the world’s biggest producers are panicking. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is facing mounting criticism over a surge in coronavirus ...

India has become the terrifying new epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic. New cases have topped 300,000 daily and are still rising; the official death toll of over 2,000 per day is almost certainly an underestimate. Every hour brings horrifying new stories of mass cremations, overwhelmed testing centers, people dying while waiting for a hospital bed. The country desperately needs help ...