Russia and Ukraine

[Leonardo17]

I think this makes the threat more real than less real. And I think China and India’s role on that might be crucial. The shorter this war drags on the less chance for a nuclear accident of that sort.

Russia has its hands full with Ukraine. Why should they want to widen the war to a nuclear exchange in which there will be no winner, only losers?

+ I don’t like this new arms race between the West and China either. I think we should be focusing our efforts on our energy transition rather than on a new cold-war with China.

Right, I'd rather not spend money on weapons if we could afford not to ... but given China's flexing of muscle in the waters off Southeast Asia, not to mention is increased military intimidation of Taiwan, makes me doubt whether a cold war is avoidable.

 
So if Xi is clever enough to see these things (I think his predecessors would have seen it) there might be a change for the better within one year or so. If not, I personally am not sure where this will lead us either
 

Xi's certainly clever enough to see that. It's just whether or not that fits in with his aims.

Israel’s hands are tied because of the Russian military presence is Syria
+ They are facing an internal political crisis
+ No one knows what they are going to do if Iran pushes it’s nuclear ambitions even further.

I suspect that this news was floated in the hopes of distracting the public from the demonstrations about their courts.

1) I agree with that too. But we don’t want any accident. We want to reduce the chances as much as we can.


2) Antonio Guiteres made a very nice speech yesterday. We are moving fast toward missing the 1.5 C goal that was set in the COP 25 Paris Climate Conference. And again yesterday, Xi seemed to back Putin’s policies rather than criticize it. But I have to be hopeful. This is about being rational. If Xi is not rational this is a bad sign for China too. Because China is not a self-sufficient nation in terms of agriculture. They won’t be able to feed their population if we go too much above the 1.5 Degree limit. This is science. So let’s wait and see.

3) It doesn’t. China is too reliant on trade relations with the rest of the world. So I think it’s something different this time. Still: He is talking about “world domination” by 2050. This still sounds like the words of madman. So we don’t know and everybody is watching.