On December 12, 2015, 195 countries adopted the Paris Agreement, the most ambitious climate change pact to date. The document lays out a plan to curb greenhouse gas emissions, among other climate-related initiatives. But one issue looms large: coal.

Now that there are presumptive nominees for both major political parties, it’s an important moment to outline, in broad strokes, the positions of Secretary Hillary Clinton and businessman Donald Trump on energy and climate.

Tatiana Mitrova, Tim Boersman, and Anna Galkina assess the share of Russian natural gas in the European natural gas mix going forward.

In a critique of a recent Brookings paper by Mark Muro and Devashree Saha, Lisa Wood argues that net energy metering is in fact a tariff that creates a subsidy for NEM customers and a cost-shift onto non-NEM customers.

Over the last few years, the image of natural gas has deteriorated within the United States, particularly within the environmental community. In a new policy brief, Tim Boersma analyzes public sentiment surrounding natural gas production and the important role natural gas can play globally as a stepping stone towards a low-carbon economy.

Many may remember June 24, 2016 as the day David Cameron resigned from his position as British prime minister after an embarrassing defeat in the referendum on the United Kingdom’s European Union membership—better known as Brexit. But there was another very consequential development for Europe that day, which (understandably) received far less attention in the […]

On June 28, the Hague Institute for Global Justice, in partnership with the Brookings Institution and Municipality of the Hague, will host Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Lloyd Axworthy for the second annual Madeleine K. Albright Global Justice Lecture. Abi Williams, president of the Hague Institute, will give welcoming remarks and Ted Piccone, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, will moderate the discussion.

The mood in London today is one of shock and profound uncertainty. It's a momentous day in Europe and, one fears, a portent in the broader debate about the West’s relationship to a globalized and open world.

Post-Brexit, Tom Wright gives advice to the EU, the next British prime minister, the Remain campaign, Scotland, Ireland, and the United States.

Fear of political contagion has emerged as an incredibly powerful and important idea that is poised to shape Europe’s future. Unfortunately, it has been repeated as mantra and has not been subjected to careful scrutiny.

Crisis seems to be the byword for Brazil today: political crisis, economic crisis, corruption crisis. Yet despite the steady drum beat of grim news, Brazil is more than likely to resume its upward trajectory within a few years.

Roberta Cohen and Francis M. Deng write on sovereignty and responsibility as the building block for R2P in the "The Oxford Handbook of the Responsibility to Protect."

At the second annual Madeleine K. Albright Lecture on Global Justice, Lloyd Axworthy—a former foreign minister of Canada—unpacked complex and interconnected issues related to the Responsibility to Protect and the role of democratic institutions in assuring peace.

On July 14, the Brookings Project on International Order and Strategy (IOS) hosted an event with Daniel Drezner, Caroline Atkinson, and David Wessel on the future of the global economic order given rising populism and discontent with globalization.

The attempted coup in Turkey was, for many observers, reminiscent of another recent July uprising in a key American ally: the 2013 military takeover in Egypt. These coups were a disaster for U.S. policy in both cases, and would have been regardless of how they turned out.

“[Turkey’s] democracy was always a problematic one, interrupted by military coups, but also when there were no military coups the democracy itself had its own challenges with respect to the quality of human rights, the spectrum of democracy as well – the military always hung over this democracy like Damocles’ sword.” – Kemal Kirişci “Turkey […]

African governments take varying approaches to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 As of this writing, Africa has registered over 39,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 1,600 deaths, with most cases concentrated in the north of the continent as well as in South Africa. African countries have enacted various forms of lockdowns, external and internal border closures,…

Humans are bad at assessing risk even in the best of times. During a pandemic—when the disease is unfamiliar, people are isolated and stressed, and the death toll is rising—our risk perception becomes even more distorted, with fear often overwhelming reason. This is a recipe for disastrous policy mistakes. To be sure, the danger posed…

The release of the IMF’s World Economic Outlook provides an initial country-by-country assessment of what might happen to the world economy in 2020 and 2021. Using the methods described in the World Poverty Clock, we ask what will happen to the number of poor people in the world—those living in households with less than $1.90…

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought economic and social activity around the world to a near standstill. As a result, carbon dioxide emissions have declined sharply, and the skies above some large cities are clean and clear for the first time in decades. But “degrowth” is not a sustainable strategy for averting environmental disaster. Humanity should protect…

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the ensuing lockdowns, and the near standstill of the global economy have led to massive unemployment in many countries around the world. Workers in the hospitality and travel sectors, as well as freelancers and those in the gig economy, have been particularly hard-hit. Undoubtedly, unemployment is often an economic catastrophe leading…

Last month’s edition of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s biannual Regional Economic Outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa, which discusses economic developments and prospects for the region, pays special attention to the financial channels through which COVID-19 has—and will—impact the economic growth of the region. Notably, the authors of the report reduced their GDP growth estimates from…

Women and girls in Africa are among the most vulnerable groups exposed to the negative impacts of the coronavirus pandemic. Although preliminary evidence from China, Italy, and New York shows that men are at higher risk of contraction and death from the disease—more than 58 percent of COVID-19 patients were men, and they had an…

Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan political updates Ethiopia-Eritrea relations continue to thaw, as on Sunday, May 3, Eritrean president Isaias Afwerki, Foreign Minister Osman Saleh, and Presidential Advisor Yemane Ghebreab, visited Ethiopia, where they were received by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. During the two-day diplomatic visit, the leaders discussed bilateral cooperation and regional issues affecting both states,…

It has been 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall. The consequences of this event for Germany and for Europe to this day take central stage in discussions about the end of the Cold War. Essays on the repressive nature of the regime in East Germany and the wall’s purposeful construction to keep…

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan received a warm welcome at the White House last Wednesday. But this facade of good relations between the two countries is highly deceiving. Indeed, any sense of victory Turkey might claim from the outwardly friendly visit with Donald Trump is an illusion. In reality, the two countries are wide apart…

History is often full of strange ironies. Decades from now, the rise and fall of ISIS will probably be remembered in the same breath as the rise and fall of Kurdish hopes of statehood. That Kurdish aspirations of independence in Syria and Iraq should have suffered the same fate as ISIS is, of course, an irony…

The inaugural Global Refugee Forum (GRF) will take place in Geneva this week to review international commitments to support the ever-growing number of refugees worldwide and the communities that host them. Representatives of states and international agencies, as well as refugees, academics, civil society actors, private sector representatives, and local government officials will all gather.…

Executive Summary The Syrian crisis is approaching its ninth year. The conflict has taken the lives of over 500,000 people and forced over 7 million more to flee the country. Of those displaced abroad, more than 3.6 million have sought refuge in Turkey, which now hosts more refugees than any other country in the world.…

The Syrian crisis is approaching its ninth year. In that span, the conflict has taken the lives of over five hundred thousand people and forced over seven million more to flee the country. Of those displaced, more than 3.6 million have sought refuge in Turkey, which now hosts more refugees than any other country in the world.…

After nine years of political conflict in Syria, more than 5.5 million Syrians are now displaced as refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey, with more than 3.6 million refugees in Turkey alone. It is unlikely that many of these refugees will be able to return home or resettle in Europe, Canada, or the United States.…

It has been more than a month since the first COVID-19 case was detected in Turkey. Since then, the number of cases has shot up significantly, placing Turkey among the top 10 countries worldwide in terms of cases. Government efforts have kept the number of deaths relatively low, and the health system so far appears…

Turkey is well into its second month since the first coronavirus case was diagnosed on March 10. As of May 5, the number of reported cases has reached almost 130,000, which puts Turkey among the top eight countries grappling with the deadly disease — ahead of even China and Iran. Fortunately, so far, the Turkish death…

We hosted a Development Seminar on “Unemployment and domestic violence — new evidence from administrative data” with Dr. Sonia Bhalotra, Professor of Economics at University of Essex. Abstract: This paper provides possibly the first causal estimates of how individual job loss among men influences the risk of intimate partner violence (IPV), distinguishing threats from assaults. The authors find…

It’s embarrassing to admit, since I work in a Center on Children and Families, but I had never really thought about the word “relative” until I read the new Atlantic essay from David Brooks, “The Nuclear Family Was a Mistake.” In everyday language, relatives are just the people you are related to. But what does…

This week in Class Notes: Reforming college admissions to boost representation of low and middle-income students could substantially reduce income segregation between institutions and increase intergenerational mobility. The Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend increased fertility and reduced the spacing between births, particularly for females age 20-44. Federal judges are more likely to hire female law clerks after serving on a panel…

Over the last few decades, family formation patterns have altered significantly in the U.S., with long-run rises in non-marital births, cohabitation, and single parenthood – although in recent years many of these trends have leveled out.   Importantly, there are increasing class gaps here. Marriage rates have diverged by education level (a good proxy for both social class and permanent income). People with at least a BA are now more likely to get married and stay married compared…

President Lyndon B. Johnson introduced his “war on poverty” during his State of the Union speech on Jan. 8, 1964, citing the “national disgrace” that deserved a “national response.” Today, many of the poor children of the Johnson era are poor adults with children and grandchildren of their own. Inequity has widened so that people…

This week in Class Notes: The Texas Top Ten Percent rule increased equity and economic efficiency. There are big gaps in U.S. early-life mortality rates by family structure. Locally-concentrated income shocks can persistently change the distribution of poverty within a city. Our top chart shows how income inequality changed in the United States between 2007 and 2016. Tammy Kim describes the effect of the…

We know that to achieve success in most social policy areas, such as homelessness, school graduation, stable housing, happier aging, or better community health, we need a high degree of cross-sector and cross-program collaboration and budgeting. But that is perceived as being lacking in government at all levels, due to siloed agencies and programs, and…

Under normal circumstances, children spend 80 percent of their waking time outside the classroom. The COVID-19 pandemic has quite abruptly turned that 80 percent into 100 percent. Across the U.S., schools and child care centers have been mandated to close, and children of all ages are now home full time. This leaves many families, especially…

On Feb. 25, 2020, Rashawn Ray, a David M. Rubenstein Fellow at The Brookings Institution, testified before Congress's Joint Economic Committee in a hearing titled “Improving Family Stability for the Wellbeing of American Children.” Ray used his testimony to brief lawmakers on the recent trends in family formation and stability, the best ways to interpret…

While COVID-19 is invisible to the eye, one very visible sign of the epidemic is people wearing face masks in public. After weeks of conflicting government guidelines on wearing masks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended that people wear nonsurgical cloth face coverings when entering public spaces such as supermarkets and public…

Tanzania, Kenya, and UNECA enact environment-positive policies and programs On Saturday, June 1, Tanzania’s ban on plastic bags went into effect. According to The Citizen, the new law targets the “import, export, manufacturing, sale, storage, supply, and use of plastic carrier bags regardless of their thickness” on the Tanzanian mainland. The law also bans the…

South Africa offers bailout for state-owned power utility Eskom On Tuesday, July 23, the South African minister of finance presented a bill to parliament requesting a bailout of more than $4 billion for state-owned power utility Eskom. Eskom supplies about 95 percent of South Africa’s power, but has been unable to generate sufficient revenue to…

Abstract Taxation on mobile phone-based transactions and on airtime has been introduced in Kenya and is spreading to other African countries. Some countries in sub-Saharan Africa view mobile phones as a booming subsector easy to tax due to the increasing turnover of transactions and the formal nature of such transactions by both formal and informal…

This week, the Africa Growth Initiative at Brookings published a new policy brief, “Taxing mobile phone transactions in Africa: Lessons from Kenya.” The brief discusses the limited ability of increased tax rates on mobile money transactions and mobile phone airtime to raise a significant amount of new tax revenue. According to the brief, these taxes…