Council of Councils
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Introduction
Over the last several decades, governments have collectively pledged to slow global warming. But despite intensified diplomacy, the world is already facing the consequences of climate…
Show Notes
The Munich Security Conference is the stage for crisis diplomacy amid high tensions on the Russia-Ukraine border, the world marks the fiftieth anniversary of former U.S. President Richard Nixon’s historic trip to China, and the UN Environment Programme issues its annual Frontiers report.
Books Mentioned on the Podcast
Margaret MacMillian, Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed the World (2007)
Reports and Statements Mentioned
Frontiers 2022: Noise, Blazes and Mismatches, UN Environment Programme, February 17, 2022
Joint Statement of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on the International Relations Entering a New Era and the Global Sustainable Development, The Kremlin, February 4, 2022
2022 Sea Level Rise Technical Report, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, February 15, 2022
Concerns grow over the widening Middle East conflict after Iran launches three hundred ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones at Israel; European Union (EU) leaders discuss how to bolster aid to Ukraine amid an uptick in Russian attacks and the situation unfolding in the Middle East; India kicks off the world’s largest democratic election—spanning more than forty-four days—where the incumbent Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is expected to win again; and warming water temperatures cause a mass bleaching of coral reefs.
Congress returns from recess and grapples with contentious agenda items, including reauthorization of a section of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and a Ukraine aid package; Sudan enters a second year of civil war with more than half of the country’s population in need of aid and millions more displaced; and Ecuadorian police breach international law by raiding the Mexican embassy in Quito to arrest former Ecuadorian Vice President Jorge Glas.
Rwanda marks thirty years since its genocide against the Tutsis; U.S. President Joe Biden hosts the first trilateral leaders’ summit with Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio and Philippines President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.; music fans celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Swedish pop group ABBA’s Eurovision win; and Ekrem İmamoğlu is elected mayor of Istanbul, in a rebuke to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party.