Brass Tacks

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Here's a thing. We have a US President-elect vowing to tariff the beejesus out of the rest of the world in his quest for US trade autonomy [in itself a pretty economically weird concept]; the UK government vacillating about our country's trade relationship with the EU; UK landowners [Big Farmer] bitching about the removal of a tax bung they've actually only had for forty years [and they'll still be better off than they were before Thatcher's 1984 gift, only paying half the rate of inheritance tax that every other bugger has to pay]; yet another COP, yet again held in a petrostate, going nowhere for the 29th time. And then we have China.

In contrast to the Indian subcontinent, that erstwhile emergent tiger economy of tech, which is currently suffocating under the clouds of its own industrial pollution; China seems, on the surface of it, and despite its former reputation as a global mega-polluter, to be turning a corner and to offer somewhat of an example to the rest of the world in terms of renewables. In July this year, six years ahead of its own target,  it achieved the goal of 1.2 TeraWatts of solar and wind power on tap; enough energy from renewables alone to power hundreds of millions of homes per year [source: Financial Times]. Meanwhile, Trump is set to levy a sixty-per-cent minimum tariff on Chinese imports to the States when he enters office, and to pour money and resources into his domestic oil and gas industry; whilst the rest of the world looks on aghast.

Here in the UK, at least Starmer is talking to the Chinese; however he also needs to listen to the UK business community about rapidly reinforcing our trade relationship with the EU: we need to be part of a large free trade bloc now that the US is turning towards isolationism. We already rely [as does the US - duh!, Donald] more than heavily on trade with China as it is: what do you buy that isn't made there [including your/my "American" iPhone]? Whatever their internal politics and human rights issues, alienating China from the world stage is simply not an option and we just have to roll with it and make what we can out of it. At the moment, at least they appear to be making a bloody effort on the climate front, unlike most of the rest of the developed world...

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