Jeff Colgan

Are we winning yet? 😢

I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture.

They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1

Who among us fully understood the extent to which the loyalty vs. competence tradeoff for government appointees was such a crucial guardrail for democracy? Few since Hannah Arendt.

Fury, confusion and gratitude as climate deal reached in Belé – as it happened After a series of all-night meetings and fears the summit could collapse, an agreement has been gavelled through at Cop30

COP30 final agreement makes no mention of fossil fuels. 🌍

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

The current historical moment - esp. embodied by the return of President Trump - has let pundits push a need for so-called "Climate Realism".

@jeffcolgan.bsky.social & I are pleased @iojournal.bsky.social let us write our thoughts on this and subsequent trends in global climate politics. 🧵 below:

Many people think about cold in Northern Europe if the Atlantic Ocean current system #AMOC fails. But that wouldn’t be the only problem for Europe by far.
This new study shows that severe drought is another one. 🌊

Very excited about this @iojournal.bsky.social special issue on the future of global governance and world order – many (short) thoughtful pieces, perfect for teaching!

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Petro-Aggression Cambridge Core - Middle East Studies - Petro-Aggression

Me too, Chris.
#PetroAggression

www.cambridge.org/core/books/p...

"the Climate Politics Dilemma: the serious risks of climate change versus the very challenging politics of climate mitigation. Far from grappling with the hard tradeoffs, CR reifies and hardens the two sides of the Dilemma"

Good stuff @jeffcolgan.bsky.social

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Huge kudos to all the excellent senior and junior researchers working in this space who inspired us (summarising recent climate research was one of the upbeat parts of the paper), plus comments by Bob Keohane, Tyler Pratt, @hayleypring.bsky.social @sarahcolbourn.bsky.social @maxbradley.bsky.social

Huge thank you to @laynamosley.bsky.social and @bashleyleeds.bsky.social for creating this innovative special issue to engage with timely questions. A public good for IR that took a lot of their hard work! 🙏 #IOFoGG

@climatesollab.bsky.social @cssn.org @watsonschoolbrown.bsky.social @70sbachchan.bsky.social @katemac.bsky.social @brown-ibes.bsky.social @brownupolisci.bsky.social @robinsonmeyer.bsky.social

11/ We hope that this Open Access article, freely available to all, can help instructors of politics and/or environmental studies think and teach about these issues! And check out the ~20 other great articles in the special issue. #IOFoGG www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

10/The Climate Politics Dilemma consists of two core truths: (1) climate change will be highly damaging, maybe existential; and yet (2) international politics are nationally selfish, riddled with distributional challenges down to the most local level, and routinely focused on the crisis du jour. 🌍

9/ International politics creates many unknowns, but one certainty is that climate change is not decelerating. Societies worldwide will face the geopolitical and institutional challenges that a warming planet presents. We sum these up as the Climate Politics Dilemma ...

8/ Third: must understand the host of IR implications of the United States’ turn away from meaningful climate mitigation and the global spread of CR. Ex: Global energy and automobile markets are now being massively challenged China and others. Is the West losing the Global South?

7/ Second: The contrast between China’s and USA's national economic strategies on clean energy vividly illustrates the range of possibilities countries have. And the range compatible with the “Realist” label (i.e., they follow a perceived national interest) shows indeterminacy of “Climate Realism”

6/ First: Under what conditions, how much, and how effectively are those opposed to decarbonization prosecuting their campaign against clean energy and other green technologies? This is crucial to understand why so many countries, USA most obviously, are backsliding on climate action.

5/ Even so, @fgenovese.bsky.social and I think the emergence of this “Climate Realism” trend highlights three topics that we need to pay more attention to: the political strategies of the anti-green coalition, the variety of national economic strategies now emerging, and the implications for IR

4/ We extend this critique: climate “realism” smuggles in hidden assumptions and tradeoffs. For example: horrific consequences of future climate change would be acceptable so long as it happens to unspecified Other People. And dodges uncertainties associated with relying on unproven technologies.

3/ As @jeremywallace.bsky.social argued @heatmap.news, this idea is problematic. Hard for USA to persuade Global South to take any costly climate action if it doesn’t have its own house in order. And there is no clear political strategy here for actually bringing a mass of conservatives on board.

2/ The new “climate realism” rightly sees the failure of Paris and argues for policy in that light. But to “rise above partisanship,” it proposes a Faustian bargain: give up on most near-term climate policies in the hope of getting conservatives' support long-term climate action.

Bill Gates, Tony Blair, CFR are rethinking climate change in the Trump era: more "realistically." Can we dismiss this trend or do we need to understand what it means global climate politics? 🧵
@fgenovese.bsky.social and I write for @iojournal.bsky.social
#IOFoGG
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

One for the ages 😱

Alas: even if Anthropic stole your work, you can only make a claim if your book was registered with the U.S. Copyright Office. Most Canadian🇨🇦 publishers don't (or didn't), because the legal copyright exists even without registration. So Anthropic gets away with it ... unless there's a new lawsuit?

👇💯

The International History and Politics Section of @apsa.bsky.social is accepting nominations for the Jervis-Schroeder Best Book Award and the Outstanding Article Award. Nominations are due by January 31, 2026. More information here: connect.apsanet.org/s34/nominati...

#Irony

As dozens of frog species have declined across Central America, scientists have witnessed a remarkable chain of events: With fewer tadpoles to eat mosquito larvae, rates of mosquito-borne malaria in the region have climbed, resulting in a fivefold increase in cases. https://wapo.st/4paBuuT

International Criminal Court to ditch Microsoft Office for European open source alternative | Euractiv The court will move its internal work environment to Open Desk, a German-developed open source software

The International Criminal Court is ditching Microsoft Office, saying it’s too dependent on US tech, in favor of Open Desk, a German open source alternative.

The move comes after Microsoft revoked ICC head Karim Khan’s email access when he was sanctioned by the US for the warrant against Netanyahu.