From rivalry to resilience: Geopolitics in the green transition
This question animated much of the discussion at the Nature and Climate Output Lab, a session convened under the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meetings of the Global Future Councils and Cybersecurity in Dubai. There, leaders from government, business, academia, and civil society explored how the forces now dividing the world might also contain the seeds of convergence.
Their conclusion, implicit or stated, was that the green transition cannot wait for perfect harmony. It must advance through the messy realities of power – not around them.
Power, rivalry and opportunity
Two absences hovered over the conversations in Dubai like unacknowledged guests: China and the United States. The silence was striking. No nation has done more than China to scale the technologies of decarbonisation – solar, wind, electric vehicles and batteries – or to drive down their cost. Yet no nation emits more carbon, or holds greater sway over the materials that power the transition.
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