"At present, Europe has no sovereign digital payment system and its entire architecture depends on US service providers" Roadmap for Euro to become a global reserve currency: - swap lines - own payment system - avoid US stablecoins - true, common safe asset - capital markets integration

I agree 100% to the @thepolycrisis.bsky.social take on the oil issue. It’s about oil, but not because of the reasons the oil industry and petrostates rulers wants us to believe.

When we wrote a year ago about countries organizing "around and without" the US, we didn't realise the extent to which it was western allies that would be doing this most decisively. www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/pol...

“There's a global solar energy revolution happening led by China and it should have been one of the biggest stories of 2025 While the US is committing to a suicide pact with fossil fuels, the rest of the world is leapfrogging into cheap nearly limitless energy” bsky.app/profile/70sb...

Mark Blyth, co-author of "Inflation: A Guide for Users and Losers" is our holiday book club guest - *today* 3pm EST (9pm CET). You can pre-register here. us06web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

Latest edition of our Dispatch email is out, telling you all about our new guest essays; what you might have missed at COP30 on industrial policy & trade; LNG updates; AI thoughts... and: Mark Blyth inflation bookclub coming up! buttondown.com/polycrisisdi...

NEW: In this moment of profound uncertainty over the global monetary order, Europe needs to move swiftly on becoming a truly global currency issuer, writes @shahinvallee.bsky.social www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/a-g...

Interesting summary over whether COP30 made much progress "on coalitions of the doing" on climate change. Modest, maybe? A new conversation on green industrialization was something I hadn't picked up on.

How bad was it, really? Catherine Osborn, writer of @foreignpolicy.com LatAm newsletter, reflects on COP30 in Brazil. www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/cop...

2/ At @thepolycrisis.bsky.social , we’ve taken a special interest in the question of how India has been positioning itself in the new world order that has been emerging since 2022. This thread is on some of those articles and interviews phenomenalworld.org/analysis/ind...

Thread on India @thepolycrisis.bsky.social: "What provides India greater freedom of choice & sovereignty? Locking into hydrocarbon coalitions or doubling down on a green electrostate track?How India chooses will shape the destiny of 1.4Bn citizens—& the world" www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/ind...

🚨 HAPPENING SOON! 🎟️ 620+ sign-ups! Join us to launch Transition Security Project with a panel on the war economy, climate crisis & the geopolitics of the climate transition. 🎙️ @stephensemler.bsky.social @iliasalami.bsky.social @triofrancos.bsky.social 🪑 @lalehkhalili.bsky.social shorturl.at/njU0q

This is from an anon contributor to a really cool new little newsletter/journal from @advaitarun.bsky.social, Daevan Mangalmurti, and @aasthauprety.bsky.social caravanseraiforum.substack.com

ALL OF THE ABOVE? "There are contexts where building a broad energy portfolio makes sense, such as in research and development of new technologies, where failure is part of the process. But when applied to infrastructure, regulation, and deployment, the lack of prioritization becomes a liability."

"Beijing has launched dozens of new satellites and other sensors to locate US forces & 100s of increasingly accurate missiles—ballistic, cruise,& hypersonic—to strike airfields & ships throughout the region. Washington has countered by improving US missile defenses..." direct.mit.edu/isec/article...

2/ Is the Chinese central govt pushback on involution. The brutal competitiveness of what @70sbachchan.bsky.social calls the "fitness centre" of Chinese domestic markets has become so intense that companies are cutting prices below costs. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

So here are the actual things that I was looking for: 1/ Total reversal of the old "China steals western IP" story. Now it is China with the tech and know-how. Late last year the EU inserted tech transfer provision into its Innovation Fund call for EV battery grants www.ft.com/content/f4fd...

And the OBBBA's biggest legacy will be ceding 'energy dominance' to China: www.nybooks.com/online/2025/... Tim Sahay of @thepolycrisis.bsky.social has been all over this too: bsky.app/profile/70sb...

"I write about the 3 Americas: one built on AI speculation, one held together by healthcare, and one running on memes" Brilliant &brooding piece by @kyla.bsky.social that runs a thread through the american shatterbelt @katemac.bsky.social & I honored to be quoted! kyla.substack.com/p/how-ai-hea...

TACO is dead, long live EMPANADA? *Everyone Makes Promises And Never Actually Does Anything* Will EU, Japan, and South Korea actually buy lots of additional American weapons, more American LNG, and make hundreds of billions of dollars of investments in America...? buttondown.com/polycrisisdi...

Our lowkey Dispatch email is back! This week: Chip wars, tariff wars, BRICS, green cold war, and international solidarity -- or lack thereof. Subject line inspired by @flavorflav.bsky.social & Nigeria's foreign minister Tuggar, who's rejecting US threats & demands. buttondown.com/polycrisisdi...

"The postwar geopolitical order rested on three pillars: American hegemony, the fossil-fuel energy system, and an open, multilateral trading order. America has now attacked each pillar at the foundation of its hydrocarbon global order." www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/bri...

As well as our big essay-newsletters with @phenomenalworld.bsky.social, we run a (mostly) weekly newsletter. You can subscribe here. It is free of course. buttondown.com/polycrisisdi...

Did @theguardian.com ed.s just plagiarize @70sbachchan.bsky.social & @katemac.bsky.social's @thepolycrisis.bsky.social? "The postwar order stood on three pillars: US dominance, hydrocarbons and open trade. Today, all three are cracking..." Don't settle for cheap knock-offs from sunsetting empires.

I should mention that @thepolycrisis.bsky.social has been all over this narrative, esp @70sbachchan.bsky.social. And it's everywhere you look... even the past jacobin.com/2025/06/heav...

“For the first time in two centuries, the West is no longer the leader in future technology, but the follower" NEW: @katemac.bsky.social and I @phenomenalworld.bsky.social write about what China's tech acceleration means for the world. Subscribe & read here: www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/bri...

New @thepolycrisis.bsky.social essay alert: China has made advances in green energy, manufacturing, and non-dollar trade. But for BRICS, moving away from the entrenched King dollar in trade & finance still remains the biggest challenge. www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/bri...

New dispatch alert: #China has made advances in green #energy, manufacturing, and non-dollar trade. But for BRICS, moving away from the #dollar in #trade & finance still remains the biggest challenge. More in our latest edition of The Polycrisis⤵️ www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/bri...

In an effort to win this contest, China is building hegemony by exporting not just its green products but also in a structural shift exporting its technology, engineering, supply chains, and financing. phenomenalworld.org/analysis/bri... www.ft.com/content/e517...

New dispatch alert: BRICS export ties with the #US have weakened since 2000, except for #India. While others pulled back, India’s exports to the US have quietly grown. More on this in our latest edition.⤵️ www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/bri...

China has made major gains in green #energy, manufacturing, and non-dollar trade. But for BRICS, breaking from the #dollar in #trade and finance remains a challenge. For more, have a read of our latest newsletter 👇 www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/bri...

Our new BRICS post is out, as the annual summit begins today. What even *is* this expanding group of middle income countries with different agendas? Not an anti-western effort, or even an anti-dollar one. We start with China's technological revolution. www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/bri...

“While Republicans attempt to shut down America’s entire scientific research apparatus, the rest of the world moves on. The demise of the IRA would decisively surrender the global market for all types of commercialized clean energy sources (and nuclear energy) to China.” @advaitarun.bsky.social

This week: Who is and isn't stockpiling critical minerals, and everything you wanted to know about "geoeconomics" but were afraid had already been covered by political scientists and political economists. (It has, but now economists have modelled it, and it's fine.) buttondown.com/polycrisisdi...

Love this recommendation; good company to be in!

LAUNCHING…. The first issue of our new journal – now available to pre-order on The BREAK—DOWN website 👇 linktr.ee/breakdownradio

Our latest @thepolycrisis.bsky.social Dispatch is out (actually was out a couple of days ago). In it we muse on LNG - of course - and u n c e r t a i n t y Also, leopards eating faces of US O&G sector. buttondown.com/polycrisisdi...

Two of the smartest people I know (@iliasalami.bsky.social & @70sbachchan.bsky.social) take a deep dive - and provide indispensable context and analysis- into the contemporary mess, in this latest not-to-be-missed episode of @thedigradio.bsky.social podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/t...

"Brazil perhaps has the best conditions in the world for renewable energy. When we talk about changing the energy matrix, it’s not about changing the source of electricity, but about energy policy." Now in EN, PW's Hugo Fanton interviews MAB leader Gilberto Cervinski

@katemac.bsky.social & I started @thepolycrisis.bsky.social two years ago to investigate the intersections in the world crisis we are living in. We are hosted & edited by the wonderful @phenomenalworld.bsky.social - who publish the best political economy content! IN English, Portuguese & Spanish

Tim & Kate will be on a zoom panel with David Wallace-Wells and Noah Gordon at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Register here: carnegieendowment.org/events/2024/...

The transcript for our Oil, politics and the mid-transition panels is online now! Read about China's "central bank of oil" and the importance of an unprecedented decline in oil demand. www.phenomenalworld.org/interviews/o...

NEXT WEEK, a Polycrisis panel— Oil and Politics in the Mid-Transition. Featuring: Amy Myers Jaffe, Adam Tooze, Alex Turnbull, Morgan Bazilian, William Oman. October 5 at 4pm ET. Register now: bit.ly/transition-g...

NEXT WEEK, a Polycrisis panel— Oil and Politics in the Mid-Transition. Featuring: Amy Myers Jaffe, Adam Tooze, Alex Turnbull, Morgan Bazilian, William Oman. October 5 at 4pm ET. Register now: bit.ly/transition-g...

A long view of global absolute temperatures really highlights just how much the world has warmed since the mid-1900s. Here are daily global temperatures in the JRA-55 reanalysis product since 1958; this year really stands out!

Seguire @thepolycrisis.bsky.social e @70sbachchan.bsky.social è sempre utile. Nella speranza che i loro thread diventino frequenti come nel social dell'oligarca sudafricam-statunitense

There's a lot of activity here! I get as much interaction with <1000 followers here as I did with 15k on Musk-era Twitter. But rebuilding the graph takes time.

Green subsidies, tariffs, preferential deals for low carbon goods. Interdependence is being weaponised — but it’s also facilitating cooperation. https://www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/trading-order/

New newsletter is out! @The liberal trading order has been weaponized; security, not efficiency, is the new watchword.” Yet fragmentation narratives belie resilience. https://www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/trading-order/

I think about this a lot.