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Support for the climate change bill by companies including Exxon frustrates Republicans, says this report in WSJ. Exxon CEO Darren Woods calls the climate bill "a step in the right direction." A letter signed by 38 companies including the arms of BP and Shell in the US calls for quick passage of the climate change bill. It says- "Investments in the climate change bill would reduce climate related risks across the economy while combating inflation, reducing costs for families, and improving energy security." This letter is organized by two climate oriented business groups. Republicans are now lecturing the oil companies for their response to what oil companies see as a bill that finally is tackling climate change. As one Senator puts it once you enter the cloak room of the Republican party in the Senate you enter another world that does not connect with the climate change, drought in the western US and in Europe, floods and other effects of climate change happening in the world. Oil companies see little advantage in distancing themselves from necessary climate change action and see quick passage of the bill. Oil companies also see the positives in the efforts of Mr. Manchin to negotiate provisions for boosting oil and natural gas in the interim period. ...

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Cohn and Monkovic of the NYT show how the shift of blacks, hispanics, and white collar professionals is doing to the demographics in the eastern, coastal and southern states, and how this will impact 2016 and future presidential elections in the U.S. This includes North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Virginia, and Florida. It means the electoral map may have changed by 2016 and 2020, as the less educated voters in rural areas are balanced by a growing minority and white collar vote in the suburbs and major cities of the South.

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Coral Davenport of the NYT provides some of the basics of the Paris climate change agreement. This includes an effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions by half to avoid a situation in which atmospheric temperatures rise by 2 degrees Celsius or 3.6 degree Fahrenheit.  The earlier effort to negotiate an accord failed in 2009 in Copenhagen. This time all 186 countries were asked to signup with the USA and China, the No. 1 and No. 2 polluters and India leading the way. Germany is well on its way to self sufficiency through development of solar and wind energy with the German government leading the way, and France leads in the use of nuclear energy. How did this happen now? As Davenport points out there are scientific studies. But this is not the primary reason China is shifting.Davenport fails to emphasize the health concerns and pollution concerns that motivated China to shift away from coal. China's industrial revolution of the last 3 decades has come at a huge cost in pollution of air and water, and president Xi Jinping has decided to make the shift away from coal a top priority. It is estimated that mortality rates for areas of high coal use north of the Yangzte river have higher mortality rates than areas of lower use of coal south of the Yangzte river. The other big polluter India is shifting because it is learning from China's experience. Davenport mentions the resistance to the scientific evidence in the Republican party. As a result it is already clear that it lacks support in Congress and under a future Republican administration. In a fashion similar to healthcare, president Obama failed to create a consensus before proceeding in the hope that this would be better than waiting. However American industry is already moving away from coal as documented in Links- "The Trump executive order on coal and the continuing shift to natural gas." Utilities in the U.S. are making the shift away from coal because of the economics and planning ahead as governments can change every four years. ...

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India US relations are critical, and the human element with 4.4 million Indians living in the US is a critical part of this, Jaishankar and Blinken, foreign ministers of India and the US, told a gathering of students in Cambridge, Massachusetts today. This has completely transformed the relations between the 2 countries. "Students, researchers, academics and professionals who have contributed to America's progress even as they remain a bridge between our two societies," Jaishankar told the students. Yet this is not enough as a close understanding between the young Americans young Indians has to be built. "Your appreciation of a civilizational state and a democratic and fellow polity that is overcoming enormous odds is essential. After all we are natural partners when our people have a strong sense of connect," Jaishankar told the students. How many young people in America understand the enormous odds in a democratic country to vaccinate over 1 billion people or meet the basic needs for food and essential medicines for every person in the country of 1 billion. Yet this has been achieved in 2020 to 2022. America has a strong inward sense and insular attitude, and for this reason India needs to take the initiative to reach out to America. India's new education policy puts great emphasis on collaboration with America and European Union in education which has huge potential to build close understanding. To do this Jaishankar and Blinken together launched the Working Group for Education and Skill Development for the US and India. ...

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Awareness about climate change is increasing. A poll in 2017 shows 61% of people in 38 countries seeing it as a big threat. Only terrorists inspired bigger fear. Even with the U.S. withdrawal from the climate change agreement many cities and states in the U.S. including California and New York are committed to the goals set in the Paris Accords. China is making a shift away from coal and fossil fuels. Yet the huge demands in Asia, particularly India as it shifts from a rural to an urbanized economy, mean that the shift away from fossil fuels is going to be very difficult. In the last decade 2006-2016 energy demand in Asia increased by 40%, according to the Economist, oil and coal use increased by about 3% a year and natural gas at 5.2% a year. Solar energy and wind power use is increasing and solar becoming cost efficient. Yet Asia still depends on fossil fuels. Even the use of electric cars in China as it pushes for higher numbers of electric vehicles means use of energy coming from a electricity grid powered two thirds by coal, producing more carbon dioxide than some very efficient gasoline driven car models. There are short term costs in the shift from coal but this comes with a better cleaner air demanded by urban residents, and less costs in health. In certain countries like India the costs are to be balanced with the need to tackle rural poverty.   ...

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Daniel Bell at Tsinghua University in Beijing, Andy Xie, economist in Shanghai, Zhang Habin, professor at Peking University, and Michael Meyer, author and hutong expert, talk about what issues are important. Bell says Obama mania is absent among the young in China, though they respect his intellectual abilities, and Chinese are not looking to the USA for ideals. They are looking to Chinese culture and characteristics, and democracy is seen in this light with emphasis on Chinese characteristics. This means the US has to engage at a deeper level with China. Treat China as an equal with something positive to offer, says Bell. Andy Xie is concerned about the US-China relationship, based as it is today on tenuous grounds, where what happens in Florida and California can have a significant and immediate effect on what happens in Guangdong. With 70% of the furniture sold in the US made in China, the effects are immediate when housing slumps. So he says the US lost 3 million jobs since the subprime crisis, and China lost 20 million jobs. And for the 5 million college graduates coming out in 2009, they will be adding to the 5 million college graduates from previous years who are seeking jobs. Ten million unemployed college graduates mean China is seeing whole new conditions as the backdrop of US-China relations. Habin says its important for the US to set an example in climate change and emissions of greenhouse gases. The US should sign an agreement with China with binding targets, make its technology available to China, and provide development aid to make this technology and other assistance accessible to China. Cooperation on this issue is vital to future relations says Habin. Meyer says the hutong, small enclaves of old Beijing with lanes and small homes, that the city officials call neighborhood slums, but actually have a sense of community and a vibrant life, are worth preserving. He questions the Walmart and Pepsi commercial culture, and questions building of the American car culture urban plan that generates pollution, lacks community feeling, and is not energy efficient. In fact he has a point here, because the US is shifting away from its own older urban planning design that encourages urban sprawl, as in California. The new Sacramento urban plan that is being adopted for the future in America has energy efficiency, more community and easy interaction, less urban sprawl in mind. See the link to this. But Meyer says Chinese planners insist on their right to make the same mistakes American urban planners made. And Meyer quotes the head of the first Chinese environmental NGO, who says, "if the Chinese want to live the American way of life we need 7 earths to support them". Which raises a disturbing question of the US postwar way of life with its large SUV's, urban sprawl, and less sense of community. Wouldn't the US have to join India and China in the worldwide scramble for resources to preserve this way of life? Just this week China signed $51 billion of deals for natural resources, see the link. And is the rapid decline of the SUV, just the first sign of changes that are taking place, with the economic changes in coming years leading to grappling with issues of better quality of life, smaller quantity of things, health and obesity and lifestyles, community, all coming to the fore. ...

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Sinn Fein is very different today from what it was decades earlier as the political wing of the Irish Republican party. When Ireland became independent Britain retained a third of the country as part of the UK as Northern Ireland. Sinn Fein's goal was to reunify the country.  It is popular today along the border and in regions struggling with poverty, including rural areas. As a left of centre party it is unique in Europe as both the main parties are right of center. Housing is an issue for Sinn Fein because it is the first to call for government to play a role in building new housing to tackle a severe housing shortage. With social policies that include government involvement to support social programs, Sinn Fein is likely to be the largest party winning 25% of the votes, with Fiana Fail the current party getting 24%,  and Fine Gael 20%. Yet rival parties are not likely to form a coalition with Sinn Fein. It also shows how much has changed when Irish reunification is now on the agenda with a referendum in 5 years proposed by Sinn Fein, as an accepted feature of the political landscape with Britain leaving the European Union. Under Mary Lou Macdonald who is from Dublin, replacing Gerry Adams, the image of the party is very different today, compared to the violence tinged past of the links to the Irish Republican Army. Most supporters today have few memories of that period, growing up in the period after peace was established in Ireland between different factions.  The exit of Britain from the European Union has provided momentum to the idea of reunification of Ireland from all sides for the first time. The links to the EU are popular in all parts of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The links to the economic crisis of 2009 and free markets have tainted the record of Fiana Fail, long the dominant party.  In Northern Ireland Mr. McGuiness is succeeded by Michelle O'Neill, who was just 21 when the peace deal was signed. In Ireland Mary Lou McDonald entered politics after the peace deal and has a Dublin accent.  The new generation looks at the EU as a natural partner, distancing itself from England. It also thinks and acts differently than Sinn Fein of the past. In just the way Scottish independence has found its way as an accepted idea in Scotland, Irish unification is seen as a positive idea with its association with the European Union, ...

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As Japanese prime minister Noda prepares to restart the Oi nuclear plant in June 2012, former prime minister Naoto Kan, who was premier during the Fukushima nuclear disaster, answers questions in a parliamentary inquiry. He says he realized how dangerous nuclear power can be when it got to the point where the evalcuation of Tokyo was being considered, Japan was then on "the verge of national collapse." His fears were that a number of meltdowns could together " release into the air and sea many times, no, many dozens of times, many hundreds of times the radiation released by Chernobyl." The Japanese public has focussed on the parliamentary hearings because the previous inquiry is thought to have been perfunctory, and not really examined in depth all the issues the Fukushima disaster had raised, and the general feeling is that a proper public dialogue had not taken place. In contrast in Germany the issues had been discussed openly, and the Angela Merkel government which had been receptive to nuclear power reversed its stand on nuclear power. Germany is phasing out dependence on nuclear energy. Kan pointed out that the "nuclear village," the network of nuclear power companies, bureaucrats, and researchers, had hijacked national nuclear policy and was putting Japan back on the same path. He went so far as to compare it with the situation facing Gorbachev in Russia after Chernobyl: "Gorbachev said in his memoirs that the Chernobyl accident exposed the sickness of the Soviet system. The Fukushima accident did the same for Japan." In his assessment of what happened Kan said: "It is impossible to ensure safety sufficiently to prevent the risk of a national collapse. Experiencing the accident convinced me that the best way to make nuclear plants safe is not to rely on them, but rather to get rid of them."...

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Tyler Cowan says slower growth in India is a troubling sign in 2012, and as significant if not more than the eurozone crisis. A less mentioned and major problem is the low productivity in agriculture, and he points to Japan, Taiwan, and S. Korea where major increases in agricultural productivity preceded successful industrialization. With growing population and continued growth India will be one of the largest economies in the world. The other major problem is shortages of energy supplies and the inability of state owned company, Coal India, to upgrade technology and increase output.

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"In the spring of 1971, I met a girl," with that beginning Bill Clinton gave one of the most memorable speeches at a Democratic Convention in history, to introduce the very human, Hillary- sometimes frail, but always looking for new mountains to climb, new barriers to break, new injustices to be righted. Of the long courtship at Yale and the years at Arkansas, buying that house in Little Rock Hillary liked before proposing marraige,  the time when they cried while leaving their daughter Chelsea at college dorm in Stanford; and all the private moments of a political couple one gregarious and outward looking, the other serious and inward looking. An introduction to someone you have heard too much about but you never knew. Never saw too close because of her intense longing for privacy- possibly coming from her own mother- Methodist upbringing that you were never the one to focus on, and family experience. Bill had seen this Methodist up close, and shared his experience with his countrymen who had not known her so well as he had.  ...

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GE's plans to acquire Alstom's energy unit.

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The IMF's Martin Cerisola, who headed a delegation to Iran on Jan. 25- Feb 8, 2014, has put out a report on the country's economy saying serious risks lie ahead. The inflation rate fell from 45% annualized rate in July 2013 to about 30% in Dec 2013, offering a short respite with a slight easing of the sanctions regime, but Cerisola says Iran remains in serious danger of "external shocks," that could affect Iran's currency, the rial. Cerisola says in his report that the reduced subsidies for fuel and food, poorly funded social programs, and the "marked deterioration in the external environment stemming from the intensification of trade and financial sanctions, have weakened the economy."