In Print

The Cop26 message? We are trusting big business, not states, to fix the climate crisis

November 16, 2021

The summit exposed a world looking beyond a broken neoliberal model Cop26 delivered no big climate deal. Nor, in truth, was there any reason to expect one. The drastic measures that might – at a stroke – open a path to climate stability are not viable in political or diplomatic terms. Like climate breakdown itself, this is a fact to be reckoned with, a fact not just about “politicians”, but about the polities of which we are all, like it or not, a part. The step from the scientific recognition of a climate emergency to societal agreement on radical action is still too great. All that the negotiators at Cop26 could manage was makeshift. When it comes to climate finance, the gap between what is needed and what is on the table is dizzying. The talk at the conference was all about the annual $100bn

Ecological Leninism

November 15, 2021

Adam Tooze on Andreas Malm’s post-pandemic climate politics The carbon clock is ticking. Governments and official agencies assure us that all will be well, that they can balance the risks. Some insist that technology will save us. We have achieved the impossible before, we will do it again. But why believe them? Progress towards decarbonisation has been limited. Fossil fuel interests remain stitched into global networks of power directly descended from the age of imperialism. Their political outriders may be cynical hacks, but public support for the fossil fuel status quo is all too real. The carbon coalition seems death-driven, defiant of expert advice. Centrist liberals are loud in expressing outrage, but shrink away when push comes to shove. There are periodic waves of protest. Children boycott school. There are demands for a new social contract and a just transition. A minority, tiny as yet, calls for

Why the so-called “energy crisis” is both a threat and an opportunity

October 27, 2021

This is a moment to accelerate the transition towards net zero, not to retreat. When it comes to the politics of energy and the climate it can seem as though we are living inside a kaleidoscope. In April 2020 Covid-19 sent oil futures tumbling into negative territory. In May this year, global oil companies were on the run, as ExxonMobil’s diehard management were humiliated by activist shareholders when they demanded

“It Would Be a Mistake to Grant Him His Wish”

October 27, 2021

Christian Lindner would be unsuitable as finance minister – but would make a good minister of digital affairs, according to economists Joseph E. Stiglitz and Adam Tooze. From the coalition negotiations in Berlin so far, two things are clear: The Traffic Light coalition – so named because of the colors associated with the parties involved – is the government Germany needs right now. The three parties – the center-left Social

The future of Europe is at stake in the fight for Germany’s finance ministry

October 20, 2021

A fiscal conservative in the job and a new era of debt limitation could spell disaster for EU countries The result of the German election was known within minutes of the polls closing on 26 September. But the kind of government that will emerge is being decided now, behind closed doors, in intense three-way coalition negotiations. With the Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) humiliated by a defeat of unprecedented magnitude, Olaf

Adam has contributed articles to the above publications. Click on a logo to see his articles in situ.

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Auf Deutsch

Britain

Central Banking

China

Climate Political Economy

COVID

Critical theory

Debt Politics

Democracy

Europe

Europe’s Political Economy

Germany

Global Political Economy

History

USA

Archive

The Post-Merkel Return of German Ideologies

September 17, 2021

After years of consensus, a new era of division is set to roil German politics at home and abroad. In what may prove to be her last speech to the Bundestag, last week, German Chancellor

How China Avoided Soviet-Style Collapse

September 16, 2021

Understanding the shifting balance of social forces, interest groups and political factions is essential to see how China escaped the shock therapy that brought down the Soviet Union. For three days in the middle of

The 9/11 Attacks in Historical Perspective, 20 Years Later – Vast Spending With Dubious Returns

September 9, 2021

The global war on terror triggered by 9/11 was a vast undertaking. It took hundreds of thousands of lives, reshaped America’s relations with large parts of the world and challenged its moral compass. It also

The new age of American power

September 9, 2021

Despite forecasts of decline following the Afghanistan withdrawal, the US military is planning another century of global domination. In August 2021, the dismaying scenes at Kabul airport stirred a number of gloomy pronouncements about the

Has Covid ended the neoliberal era?

September 2, 2021

The year 2020 exposed the risks and weaknesses of the market-driven global system like never before. It’s hard to avoid the sense that a turning point has been reached If one word could sum up

What if the Coronavirus Crisis Is Just a Trial Run?

September 1, 2021

Almost two years since the novel coronavirus began to circulate through the human population, what lessons have we learned? And what do those lessons portend for future crises? The most obvious is the hardest to

Don’t Abandon Afghanistan’s Economy Too

August 27, 2021

As the chances of evacuation dwindle, the West owes Afghans a chance at surviving in their own country. As Western powers pull out of Afghanistan, they have begun to ask themselves what their remaining sources

Opinion: the Fed can, and should, take big steps on climate

July 26, 2021

In the last two years the central banking community has embraced the issue of climate change. That is not to say that central bankers have been converted to climate activists. That would imply a drop-everything

Why there is no solution to our age of crisis without China

July 21, 2021

For decades, the West has ignored the significance of China’s rise – but we must recognise that it will be instrumental in all our futures In the summer of 2021 the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)

Climate crisis offers way out of monetary orthodoxy

July 12, 2021

On July 8th the European Central Bank announced the results of the Monetary Policy Strategy Review initiated by its president, Christine Lagarde, in January 2020. Delayed by the pandemic, its deliberations had been kept tight. But, with

Can Elites Start the Climate Revolution?

June 3, 2021

Financial capital and the courts are quietly creating the conditions to stop global warming—if politics does its part, too. Will the spring of 2021 prove to be a pivotal moment in the climate crisis? Last

Learning to Live with Debt

May 18, 2021

At the time of writing, the pandemic is continuing to take a heavy toll on the European economy, and even though an economic collapse has been prevented, Europe’s growth prospects are far from encouraging. Policy-makers

Green mortgages: Homes need to catch up to climate change

May 13, 2021

When we think of tackling the problem of climate change we might think of smoke-belching power plants, or gas-guzzling trucks, or the guilty pleasure of a last-minute flight to Cancun. But a huge part of

America’s race to net zero

April 21, 2021

Does Joe Biden’s climate plan go far enough? On 22-23 April the Biden administration is hosting a global climate summit to mark Earth Day, named after the largest ever environmental demonstration, staged in the United

The Gatekeeper

April 16, 2021

Arguing with Zombies: Economics, Politics and the Fight for a Better Future by Paul Krugman. Norton, 444 pp., £13.99, February, 978 0 393 54132 8 Paul Krugman’s latest collection of essays, Arguing with Zombies, first appeared in January 2020. Not only