The Week of September 28th, 2015
Care
Volkswagen emissions test scandal
Volkswagen, the Wolfsburg, Germany-based car manufacturer, has been caught in a major scandal for intentionally manipulating emissions test results in more than 11 million cars. The implicated cars have diesel engines that contain software created for the express purpose of cheating on emissions tests run by state regulatory agencies throughout the United States. The software was designed to detect when the car was likely being tested and significantly reduce the amount of nitrogen oxide pollutants. Reports indicate that the true level of Volkswagen diesel emissions were between 10 to 40 times greater than the standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Many people associate diesel with trucks, but Volkswagen tried to make diesel a “clean” alternative for consumer cars. They attempted to design a clean diesel-engine car with claims to both high performance and low emissions. There are many potential fallouts from the emissions-test cheating scandal. First, Volkswagen is one of the largest car companies in the world, and the harms to its reputation and stock value as well as the legal liability will lead to a loss of tens of billions of dollars. It may never fully recover from a reputation loss of this magnitude.
The revelation that Volkswagen had cheated so massively was met with widespread condemnation. In the wake of the scandal, many have called for heightened emissions regulation and a tough response from the US government. Others have speculated that this scandal may have long term effects on the car industry’s larger initiative to introduce more diesel cars. Environmentalists skeptical of the concept of “clean” diesel from the beginning will now be emboldened in their campaign to expose the atmospheric risks of diesel engines.
Germany opens and closes its borders
In two surprising turns of events, German Chancellor Angela Merkel first threw open, and then imposed curbs on, Germany’s borders. Earlier this month, Ms. Merkel had allowed Syrian refugees stranded in Hungary to enter Germany by way of Austria, a welcoming stance supported by many in the country. In recent years, Germany has been one of the biggest proponents of free movement within the European Union. But a few weeks after opening Germany’s borders, Ms. Merkel announced restrictions on the nation’s borders with Austria, persuaded by logistical difficulties and under pressure from officials from conservative Bavaria, where most of the refugees have arrived. Tens of thousands of refugees have arrived in Munich daily, and Germany expects about one million asylum-seekers this year.
The sudden nature of the decision was met with immediate reactions. With Germany apparently welcoming them, many refugees rushed to the border with Austria, only to be turned away. This has created a bottleneck in Austria, prompting the country, along with the Netherlands and Slovakia, to also restrict its borders. Meanwhile, the stridently anti-immigration government of Hungary has built a fence on its border with non-EU Serbia, with plans to extend the fence to its frontiers with fellow EU members Romania, Slovenia and Croatia. With Hungary closed off, refugees have turned to Croatia and Slovenia, who have in turn also sealed their borders. This has left hundreds of thousands of refugees stranded outside Europe. Germany, along with Austria and Sweden, hope that this latest turn of events can be used to pressure the rest of the EU to accept a quota system and take in more migrants. Many EU members, however, especially in Central and Eastern Europe, still oppose this move.
The long-run effect may be that instead of taking in more refugees, the Schengen Area, which allows free movement without border checks among EU member states, may face collapse. Although the Schengen Area allows for temporary border restrictions, these new border restrictions are more widespread than in the past and may be more permanent. This would perhaps mean the end of free movement, one of the cornerstones of the EU.
3. Reunited
Syriza wins reelection
Greece has been a major problem for the European Union for the past few years due to an ongoing deep recession, exacerbated by attempts at implementing fiscal austerity. Greece’s recession has only deepened its government’s financial problems, straining the government’s ability to repay its debts. In June Greece defaulted on a $1.7 billion payment to the IMF. Dissatisfaction with the terms of Greek debt to the “troika” – the IMF, European Commission, and European Central Bank – secured Syriza, a far-left anti-austerity party, 149 seats in the January parliamentary elections, just two short of an absolute legislative majority. Syriza, led by Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, sought to restructure Greece’s debts to the troika and abandon fiscal austerity. Ultimately, over the summer Mr. Tsipras and Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis failed to restructure government debt in Greece’s favor. Mr. Varoufakis resigned in early July after failing to secure debt forgiveness from the troika. Later in July the Greek parliament accepted a third bailout, worth $95 billion, in exchange for a pension overhaul and sales tax increases.
On August 20th, Mr. Tsipras resigned as prime minister and called early elections for September 2015. His resignation came in response to deep dissatisfaction from members of his own party, who opposed the austerity measures accepted by the parliament in exchange for a third bailout. Nonetheless, a month later, Mr. Tsipras’s Syriza party won again, securing over 35% of the vote.
The implications of Syriza’s victory are unclear. The country is in dire need of debt relief, according to the IMF. Despite the government’s dire financial situation, and expectations that Greek economy will continue to shrink, Europe is refusing to budge on debt relief, demanding Greece fully implement economic reforms prior to any discussion of debt negotiations. Although Greece’s future is uncertain, one thing is clear – Mr. Tsipras is back in office, with a second mandate from a population fed up with austerity.
Russian airstrikes in Syria
On Wednesday, Russia became the twelfth country to carry out airstrikes in Syria. This comes as part of a larger effort from Moscow to prop up the autocratic regime of embattled President Bashar al-Assad. Russia’s entrance into the conflict includes a few hundred troops on the ground, as well as military equipment, including fighter jets. At his first UN summit in ten years, Russian President Vladimir Putin described his country’s entrance into the conflict as an attempt to combat ISIS and called for the world to create an “anti-Hitler coalition” to stop the jihadist group.
Mr. Putin’s underlying motivations are still unclear. After losing influence in Syria to Iran, military intervention is Mr. Putin’s attempt to shore up his last foothold in the Middle East. The Russian media is also complicating things by conflating ISIS with other, less radical rebel groups opposed to Assad but certainly not aligned with ISIS. Not only is this a simplistic view of an exceedingly complex, centuries-old conflict, it also makes it more difficult for Russia to bomb one group but not another.
The issue there lies partly with the United States’ own intervention in Syria. The US government does not support Assad’s regime, and part of Washington’s solution to the conflict has been to arm some moderate rebel groups that oppose Assad. As it turns out, Assad’s main enemy is not ISIS but rather the rebel groups. It is possible that Assad may decide US-backed moderate rebels should be the main targets of Russia airstrikes, putting the US and Russia at odds in Syria. While Russian airstrikes against US-backed rebels are unlikely to cause conflict between the United States and Russia, they would exacerbate the current situation on the ground. Indeed, early reports (albeit from a small sample) seem to indicate Russia is not targeting ISIS. It appears Russian military action contradicts Mr. Putin’s words.
5. Changes
China to implement cap-and-trade system
On September 25th, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced his plan to create a carbon emissions cap-and-trade system in China by 2017. Mr. Xi committed to a 40 to 45% emissions reduction (per unit of GDP) in China by the year 2020 on the back of this system. This announcement comes in conjunction with previous agreements between China and the US that China will reach peak emissions by 2030.
According to the announcement, the system will impose carbon emissions ceilings on the most carbon-intensive sectors of the Chinese economy: power generation, iron and steel, chemical firms, producers of building material, and producers of cement and paper. The nationwide cap-and-trade system will be an expansion of seven already existing cap-and-trade test markets in cities including Beijing, Guangdong and Tianjin. The Chinese cap-and-trade market would be the largest in the world, nearly double the size of the world’s current largest, the European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS).
Though Mr. Xi’s announcement does constitute an important step on the global path to reduced emissions, difficulties undoubtedly lie ahead. The EU ETS has been dubbed by many a failure, largely due to the over-allocation of carbon emission allowances. Commentators both inside and outside of China worry that the ambiguous relationship between China’s largest corporations and the Chinese state, as well as the Chinese government’s proclivity to misreport statistics, will cause the cap-and-trade market to fail. All this being said, the test program in Beijing is credited with reducing the city’s carbon dioxide emissions by 6% in 2014 alone.
The political context and ramifications of this announcement cannot be overlooked. It comes seven months after the release of the film Under the Dome (穹顶之下) within China, which deeply investigated the effects of Chinese pollution on both climate change and the health of Chinese citizens. The film has become a cultural phenomenon, viewed over 150 million times within three days of its release and prompting the Chinese government to censor the film within a week of its release.
On the global stage, Mr. Xi and his administration unquestionably seek to position China as a world power on par with the United States within the century and see taking a leadership role on global issues like climate change as part of this process. Mr. Xi and President Barack Obama are likely both aware that China’s cap-and-trade program is the same type of climate plan that Mr. Obama failed to push through Congress in 2009 (though President Obama’s Clean Power Plan does represent a step in a similar direction).
Don’t Care
0. Meet the new pope, same as the old pope
Pope Francis meets with Kim Davis
News broke early on Wednesday that Pope Francis had met with Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who refused court orders to issue same-sex marriage licenses and ultimately landed in jail, in Washington, DC during his visit to the United States last week. According to Ms. Davis’s lawyer, she and her husband were snuck into the Vatican Embassy by car on September 24th, where they met with the pontiff for fifteen minutes. Pope Francis’s meeting with Ms. Davis befuddled political commentators. The Vatican never announced the meeting, nor would spokesmen for the Holy See confirm or deny that Ms. Davis met with the pope. This is a sharp contrast to dozens of private meetings announced by the Vatican during Pope Francis’s visit, such as with victims of sexual abuse.
Regardless, Pope Francis’s meeting with Kim Davis is of little significance. It is merely a reminder that, no matter Francis’s humility and his stirring words on refugees, the poor, and climate change, he is nonetheless the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, which still stands in firm opposition to same-sex marriage, many aspects of reproductive rights, and female priests. The Catholic Church is a socially conservative organization, and Francis, regardless of his reformist image, is nonetheless a product of a highly conservative environment, especially on issues of sexuality. Besides, as Michael S Winters of the National Catholic Reporter discusses, the Vatican’s silence on the meeting suggests, more than anything else, that the Holy See may consider the meeting a mistake. Pope Francis, a supporter of conscientious objection, may have mistaken Ms. Davis’s abuse of a government position to enforce her beliefs on others as a form of conscientious objection. Pope Francis’s meeting with Ms. Davis ultimately means little; it is one of the final, futile struggles of the religious right against marriage equality.
Ryan McGinnis, Wooyoung Lee, Alexi Stocker, David Gernon, and Max Rowe contributed