Arriving on Sunday in Joburg, and will be in Gqeberha for SA Auto Week, Oct 1-3. Looking forward to being back in South Africa for more research on the EV transition in the Global South!

Congratulations to Xiaokang (Harold) Xue and Matthew Larsen and the Net Zero Industrial Policy Lab for this incredible work. It's been over a week since I first read it and I am still thinking about it. Many thanks to @econsociology.bsky.social for giving space to my thoughts on this.

Growing community on green industrial policy pushing the research frontier @hochstet.bsky.social @bentleyallan.bsky.social @jonasnahm.com @joannalewis.bsky.social @michaeldavidson.bsky.social @bhbradlow.bsky.social @danielaldana.bsky.social

The geoeconomic turn is here to stay. How we design green industrial policy will decide whether it drives or derails global decarbonization. Read the full article here 👇 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

EVs & batteries = biggest focus

"The group expects annual sales of about 30,000 electric trucks for 2025, mostly in China. It has opened an electric truck factory in South Africa this year, is scouting for land in Brazil for a second overseas operation and has begun selling its vehicles in Europe." on.ft.com/46n0fh1

When I say the US has bet its post-pandemic economy on AI while China has bet its on green energy, this is what I mean: Here, AI related companies account for 75% of S&P 500 returns since ChatGPT's launch. In China, green tech accounts for one quarter of GDP growth.

This is going to be criticized as a significantly less ambitious commitment than the Paris framework would require. All well and good. But the emissions framework can obscure the mechanisms behind emissions reductions. China is hitching its entire growth model to electrification technologies.

Today is publication day! EXTRACTION: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism is officially out with @wwnorton.com - find it at a bookstore near you or order online💚📚 wwnorton.com/books/978132...

Interesting set of figures in the thread below on the limits to adopting green industrial policies across the globe. This figure in particular caught my eye. By far, the auto sector is the target for green industrial policies that appears most accessible for middle income countries.

Brazil’s association of auto manufacturers, ANFAVEA, is aiming for a “ceasefire” with Chinese firms like BYD and Great Wall Motors that have begun making EVs in the country, after having previously lobbied for increased tariffs and other import restrictions. www1.folha.uol.com.br/colunas/pain...

Quantitative social scientists interested in climate political economy: check out this awesome postdoc opportunity!

⏳Beyond thrilled to co-launch the 2nd Max Planck Summer School for Women in Political Economy next week — with this *incredible* lineup of female talent 🙌 @dustinvoss.bsky.social @mpifg.bsky.social

Congrats to André on the release of his book on Lula and the history of"Lulismo"!

This is a useful clarification of the term "electrostate." Gordon emphasizes consumption, which is important. But production is what shapes geopolitical power and strategic independence. This definition of "electrostate" can't include all countries. But it implicates politics more directly.

BREAKING: A historic coalition of national & California labor unions led by the AAUP filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration challenging the illegal & coercive use of civil rights laws to attack the University of California system & the rights of their members.

Patrick Heller interviewed by Pranab Bardhan, about the comparative pasts and futures of democracy in Brazil, India, and South Africa.

In a world riven by inequality and devastated by climate + ecological crisis, what would it take for "green industrial policy" to empower the working class in Global North + South, and be truly green? New @cplusc.bsky.social report by me and Isabel Estevez (1/3) t.co/78sQQe4d1g

Bolsonaro has been found guilty of mounting an attempted coup. This is how it's done.

Really enjoyed reading this article. This was a particularly useful insight.

This report makes clear just how deep the hubris of Biden-era climate champions was in proclaiming the IRA various versions of "the largest climate action ever." The Biden administration never even considered anything on the scale of what China has been doing — both abroad and at home.

🌍 New piece: despite political blowback, thermodynamic and geopolitical forces continue to drive the energy transition. My latest in @noemamag explores how we need to update global climate governance for this new era: www.noemamag.com/the-new-geop...

Listening to the audiobook of Cal Newport's "Slow Productivity" — at 1.5x speed.

Big, thorny question for these kinds of projects — beyond the electricity generation itself — is whether they support decentralized grid designs to extend electricity to households or grid-based energy that can drive industrial growth.

I'm sure these two news stories are completely unrelated to each other. 🙄

Thanks to Simón Escoffier for a very generous review of URBAN POWER in the newest issue of @poppublicsphere.bsky.social! doi.org/10.1017/S153...

@greenprofgreen.bsky.social responds to @nilsgilman.bsky.social 's piece on "the coming ecological cold war," by highlighting the critical role of middle powers. The heterogeneity within the BRICS bloc is case in point. I wrote about this in July in the @financialtimes.com on.ft.com/4mHVow4

5/ Middle powers have hedged both politically and in terms of their climate commitments. Whether they can be politically and/or economically pressured to align with the axis of green countries is critical for the planet’s warming trajectory.

7/ Poli sci also good at thinking abt climate & global orders (e.g. @robertfalkner.bsky.social, @busbyj2.bsky.social) but less abt energy transition as a new organizing principle for order (shameless plug alert: my new book thinks about this in a narrower way). press.princeton.edu/books/ebook/...

My essay on two strong books and the film, Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat, which you should definitely see. www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

New article with @james7jackson.bsky.social out in Competition & Change: The green versus environmental state: Reviewing two decades of conceptualizing state-led approaches journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Never too late to join us in @aaup.org

Call For Papers!: "Globalizing Political Economy: Launching the Global Political Economy Network", a conference at University of British Columbia from July 21-23, 2026. Please share with faculty and grad students! Details here: www.climateandsocietylab.com/call-for-pap...

I’m in @financialtimes.com on Trump’s recent move to make the Pentagon the top shareholder in the US only rare earths mine. This is the “worst of all worlds” resource nationalism: a toxic mix of environmental harm, militarism, Big Tech, financial de-risking, and asset appreciation. Link below ⬇️

"The central axis of this geopolitical struggle will not be the 20th century’s struggle between liberalism and authoritarianism, but a clash over the metabolic basis of modern industrial society."

This is literally the largest act of union busting in American history. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/u...

On Thursday, September 4 at 7pm (EST), be part of this in-person @nplusonemag.com event where @alybatt.bsky.social will be in-conversation with senior editor Colin Vanderburg to discuss her new book Free Gifts: Capitalism and the Politics of Nature. RSVP here:

Just out: How China builds strategic dominance in high-innovation niches fracturing the economic status quo in the world: Government Guidance Funds turn fiscal money + SOE assets into venture capital with planning discipline. A different game than Europe or Korea. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Very grateful to Astrid Haas for her thoughtful review of URBAN POWER in @africa.theconversation.com. theconversation.com/africas-city...

In the @financialtimes.com today on green planning and decommodification of life's essentials or bust post-IRA and Bidenomics. www.ft.com/content/dda5...

The analogy you want for the US situation isn’t your usual authoritarian regime - where constant dramatic purges aren’t actually the rule; it’s more insidious - or even Erdogan’s Turkey. It’s specifically South Africa in the throes of state capture under Jacob Zuma, from late 2016 to late 2017.

My lab's been attacked by an anti-wind group and their lawyers. They threatened the science funding of my whole university, to shut me and my undergraduate research assistants up. NYT just covered it. 1/n www.nytimes.com/2025/08/25/c...

Here’s a fun game I think about every August: in what year will the Fed Chair look out over the Tetons for this photo op and find the glacier on Mt. Moran gone?

New blog post summarizing my recent paper with Adam Goldstein in the AJS: blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/20...

Okay, I read Abundance, and now I reserve the right to have takes.

The key question here is just how powerful the US actually is to undertake its war on decarbonization.

In 1902, Joseph Conrad's contemporaries could lose a lot of money in attempts to connect Argentina's farmland to global markets. Tether's own recent investment in an attempt to connect Argentina's farmland to global markets is entirely different, of course. tether.io/news/tether-...

Drawing on the likes of Leah Downey, Arjun Jayadev, Leon Wansleben & @geoffmann.bsky.social, I have a new piece in @nybooks.com on money, power, and central banking.

📣 New article w/ @iliasalami.bsky.social & @tomchodor.bsky.social on the return of industrial policy globally @globalpolicy.bsky.social. Does this signal a 'New Washington Consensus'? And does the return of industrial policy 'rebuild the ladder' of economic development? 🔗➡️ tinyurl.com/yk2wvttc 1/12