Political intrigue in Germany ahead of September’s elections.  Will Angela Merkel be able to free herself from the constraints of the Grand Coalition?  Her personal popularity suggests so, but it’s not clear whether this will spill over into unequivocal support for her Christian Democrats.

In the context of the ongoing rants at business news channel CNBC over Obama’s economic policies, Daniel de Groot at Open Left links to a fascinating Pew poll (from October) that compares how well-informed various Americans are depending on where they get their information from.  Some obvious findings (doing well, the New Yorker and the BBC; doing badly, Fox News and religious radio), but also some surprises (ESPN outpolls CNN, for example).  And take pride: a whole 28% of Americans can name the British PM.                    photo credit: holger doelle

Also from Open Left, it had been taken for granted that party identification was in inexorable decline, but has Obama (or indeed, Bush) stemmed the tide of this phenomenon, and set Democrats on a long-term upward trajectory?  Sure looks like it.

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s State Department has entered the blogosphere.  Some good catch-up clips from her recent travels in Europe and the Middle East (a visit that serves as the prologue to President Obama’s visit next month).  The FT’s Brussels Blog reports on the masterfully executed political strategy which was her visit to the European Parliament.

photo credit: carf

“Lexington”, who writes the Economist’s weekly column on America, now has his own blog.  This will be the Economist’s second blog on American politics, the other being the long-running Democracy in America.  Slightly off topic perhaps, the latter yesterday considered the nefarious consequences of British visa restrictions (which I discussed briefly last week) on… clowns.

Talking of the Economist, there have been a few articles about friendship groups and social networks recently, but for my money, this article rises above the pack.  Check out “Primates on Facebook: even online, the neocortex is the limit“, and ponder whether you have enough friends to surpass the “Dunbar number”.

One of the oddest things about our political system is that, in all likelihood, the broad centre-left of Labour and Lib-Dem will top 50% in next year’s election, but it looks pretty certain that a Tory government will be returned.  With this in mind, and allusions to the 80s along the lines of my own Thatcher rant, Polly Toynbee eyes electoral reform.

And finally… Andrew Sullivan links to a welcome if unusually frank expression of opinion by a British PM on US politics: Gordon Brown on California’s homophobic proposition 8.

photo credit: sskennel

Let’s say you’re the US Secretary of State and you’re visiting China. Let’s also say your visit comes at a time when America is facing a serious recession and so desperately needs China to keep buying American debt. Do you:

a) Engage in a forceful dialogue with China over the many human rights abuses it either carries out itself or supports around the world via its financial dealings, even though this might sour China’s commitment to buying up US debt and thus further destabilise – or even crash – the entire global economy? Or…

b) Decide that the stability of America’s economy is the first priority given the current global economic crisis, even though this lets China off the hook for its horrendous human rights record?

Not easy, is it?

Well that’s the position Hillary Clinton was in this weekend as she concluded her first diplomatic tour as Secretary of State by visiting China. As for the two choices, Clinton opted for b), angering human rights groups in the process. Her statements on the matter were, if nothing else, remarkably candid, as rather than pretend to have it both ways she freely admitted her priority. The money quote:

“We pretty much know what they are going to say” on human rights issues such as greater freedoms for Tibet, Clinton told reporters traveling with her on a tour of Asia. “We have to continue to press them. But our pressing on those issues can’t interfere” with dialogue on other crucial topics.

Is she correct? On the one hand, there is nothing quite so urgent as the current near-collapse of the world’s economy and China’s continuing purchase of US treasury bonds is vital to America’s economic survival.  It’s also worth remembering that engaging China on climate issues – another declared aim of Clinton’s visit – is key to tackling global warming and can’t be achieved if China is sulking over attacks on its human rights record. However, the flip side of the coin is that what we are talking about here is a massive world superpower getting a free pass for not only  enabling, through its business dealings, many terrible regimes around the world – including Burma and Sudan -  but for some pretty bad domestic crimes as well. For example, at the exact same time as Clinton was talking to Chinese leaders, security agents had put under virtual house arrest dozens of dissidents who support “charter 08″ – a new manifesto for Chinese democracy.

While you’re struggling for an answer to this moral puzzle, it’s worth keeping in mind the absurdity of the situation: The US, having lorded it over China throughout the 90s, nevertheless allowed it to almost singlehandedly buy up American debt, thus condemning itself to walking on diplomatic tiptoes for the near future. If this was any other country, it would merely be a bad joke. But it isn’t any other country: China is a serial human rights abuser protected by the patina of legitimacy and its emerging status as the world’s new superpower.

Have you come up with the right answer yet? No, neither have I.

Talking of President Obama, he’s making his first “overseas” trip this week: to Canada.  Meanwhile, Hillary’s touring the Far East, assuring the Indonesians that Obama will find time to visit them eventually.  Don’t remember people being so keen for Air Force One to touch down when it was carrying the Texan…

photo credit: azipaybarah

Meanwhile, Hillary as elder stateswoman is putting into stark contrast the gun-totin’ (literally) ways of her successor.  Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, whose associations with the NRA are well known, caved in to those dastardly NYC liberals this week and removed the rifles from under her bed (insert lament for Caroline Kennedy here).

Gillibrand is far from the only recently-appointed Senator in the news.  In the never-ending saga of the Illinois Senate seat, Roland Burris, former (i.e. impeached and ousted) Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s choice as Obama’s replacement, is under active investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee.  It might only be a matter of time before he is forced out, and Illinois’ senior Senator, Dick Durbin, already seems to be distancing himself.  All this seems to lead credence to Russ Feingold’s suggested 28th Amendment, an end to gubernatorial appointments for empty Senate seats.  This article from The Economist makes the case.

In other news, this week, Facebook was forced into a volte-face regarding its terms of use.  It had unilaterally appropriated the rights to everything you post or write on its site.  It’s only a matter of time, however, before they find some other way to do this.  Generation Y needs to wake up and realise that privacy online is a major issue.  You write something on Facebook, or post the pictures from that drunken party, and it’s in the public domain forever.  Check out the interesting debate going on at the New York Times about the future of ’social spaces’ online.

photo credit: Compound Eye

Amid an awful lot of recessionary gloom, Europe may have taken a small but significant step forward with a new report out by the New Carbon Finance group, which shows that the EU’s ETS (Emission Trading Scheme) may actually be working. I don’t know how authoritative this report is, and the difficulties of tracking carbon  emissions across Europe force us to take each report with a grain of salt.  Indeed, I would hesitate to call this authoritative until further reports can confirm.  However, if it is true, this could well be a turning point in the struggle against Climate Change.

The problem with  all Climate Change solutions, apart from political will power, is actually designing a system to contain them. With competing influences, from the problems of levying further direct taxes, to interfering with the free markets (which as everyone knows always work flawlessly without exception) cap and trade – the broad idea of which the ETS was a derivative of, was seen as the best compromise solution to all.

It works very simply,( and you can read the wikipedia article here, or the specific EU ETS here)  but essentially each country in the EU is assigned  a certain number of permits to cover its pollution, these are then sold/auctioned/given away ( a point of much controversy) to polluters.  Polluters then need to pay for permits, and those who reduce their pollution can then sell their permits to polluters (as they have an excess). Essentially it increases the cost of pollution, with each new stage the total number of permits given out across the EU are reduced, raising the price of pollution, making polluting ventures less and less profitable, and creating greater incentives not to invest in polluting energy/industrial activity or to find ways to reduce pollution. A market based solution.

However, unsurprisingly with a scheme which has to cover thousands of businesses, there have been a large number of problems..

1. As the WWF documented, there were loopholes, some companies were able to evade pollution costs by carbon offsetting ( itself a contentious issue in Climate Change circles).  The benefits of this to the environment are difficult to measure, many are based on theoretical increases in emissions (e.g. buying more fuel efficient stoves for people instead of the coal stoves they were probably going to buy…)

2. Another problem was the first phase handed out  far too many permits were handed out, this crashed the price of pollution, and where it didn’t crash the price could result in effectively handing out money to energy and industrial companies.

3.The third problem,  is that carbon trading only accounts for 40% of Europe’s emissions. In part, its difficult to regulate some areas of personal emissions, but key industries like aviation were missed out, making the ETS limited at best. National lobbying also saw some countries such as  Germany gain opt outs for its heavy industry.

Nevertheless, I think of these problems more as teething issues in what is a highgly complex system to regulate. As WWF asserts, and what this new report may indicate is that fundamentally Cap and Trade systems can work.

Perhaps the biggest problem is simply a lack of political will to shoulder a burden that other countries aren’t shouldering in and that alone will not halt Climate Change.There is an urgent need for a global greement. European countries were only able to agree to this scheme because it was a collectively shared burden, but Europe was hardly like to shoulder an excessive burden if the US and China did nothing to reduce their own emissions.

However, things are looking decidedly different, a new wind is blowing through Washington. President Obama has not only talked of Climate change he’s started to walk the walk.

His key picks were : Holdren as a Science adviser, someone who has been vociferouson the perils of climate change and the need to act.Stephen Chu for the Department of Energy was crucial – another Scientist with exceptional credentials and Lisa Jackson as Environmental Chief. Furthermore the stimulus bill saw a cool $60 billion for green works. This was disappointing givent he size of the bill and the potential for green energy in job creation, long term energy security and the economic benefits of leading the wolrd in green technolgoy but nonetheless remains an important boost to the industry.

However, even more important than the domestic solutions is the need for a global agreement, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton put the issue front and centre, by selecting a special envoy Todd Stern for Climate change. The message is clear, the US is gearing up for a global treaty on emissions reductions.

photo credit: alibaba0

photo credit: alibaba0

A global agreement would not only forcibly strengthen the resolve of the EU to improve and expand the coverage of ETS, but the ETS itself could become the foundation for a workable global system to reduce carbon emissions.  Heady times to be sure and undoubtedly there will be further setbacks but don’t underestimate the landmark potential of this report.

photo credit: sskennel

Over at Foreign Policy’s fantastic Madam Secretary blog, which tracks the every move of the new Secretary of State, we find out that today will see the first tête-à-tête between Hillary Rodham Clinton and UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband.  The UK’s role in Afghanistan will be high on the agenda and Milliband will be the first foreign envoy with whom Clinton meets.  Don’t underestimate the importance of these kinds of gestures in the tetchy world of diplomacy…!  It’ll be interesting to see whether the ‘Special Relationship’ prevails under a President much more ambivalent to the UK than his two immediate predecessors.

Indeed, in other HRC news, the mystery du jour of Hillary’s first foreign trip has been solved: it’s South East Asia.  An interesting chance to combine a staunch ally (Japan), economic rival (China) and pressing geostrategic planning (Korea) in one bout of shuttle diplomacy.

Update: warm words at the presser.  In the video from State.gov: Miliband is beaming, although I think the visuals might be a little off – someone move those podia further apart so he’s not just staring her down!  I think what comes out in this direct contrast is the sheer stature of a statesperson like Clinton, arguably incompatible with parliamentary government.  Germany up next, but Kouchner is to wait till the end of the week: scheduling conflict or the lingering effect of those Freedom Fries?!