World Review podcast: Joe Biden, Armin Laschet and the future of transatlantic relationships newstatesman.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from newstatesman.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
At 79, I calculate I was the 7,600,001st person in the vaccine queue after NHS staff, care workers and the more than 3 million over-eighties. However, having shared Peter Wilby’s view (First Thoughts, 8 January) that it would be astonishing, given its record of failure, were the government to get its act together on administering the vaccine, I have to warn him: he could be shocked. I nearly had a heart attack on Saturday 2 January on being told over an actual phone by a real person to report at 1.40pm on Thursday for the inoculation at a surgery within walking distance of my home! Now I just have to wait for the follow-up.
Energy In 2020, net-zero pledges fell thick and fast from policymakers and businesses. In 2021, those ambitious words must turn into concrete actions. Expect more urgency, and demand for real action, at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in November. Joe Biden, who has promised a $2trn climate plan, is nearly in the White House; China appears committed to a 2060 net-zero goal; the necessary technologies are largely available, and finance is lining up behind a clean-energy economy. These goals should be achievable.
Energy Monitor:
Part of New Statesman Media Group Biden seems prepared to hit the ground running on energy policy, having already brought together an impressive energy transition team. In the EU, the challenge will be updating climate and energy laws to implement the bloc s Green Deal, which sets a new emissions target of a 55 per cent reduction by 2030. The UK has its own bold climate and energy targets, and the global potential of green finance will be v