For roughly three hundred years, the Western world – meaning Western Europe and its former colonies – has dominated the world.
The European powers (notably Britain, France and Spain) were dominant from the early 1700s to the early 1900s. And the U.S. has been dominant for most of the 20th century. Western power reached its apogee in the year 1990, with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Two years later, Francis Fukuyama could refer to the “end of history”.
Yet the era of Western hegemony may now be coming to an end.
This is not because the West suffered some obvious strategic defeat. It is simply the inevitable result of population growth and economic development in other parts of the world.
As the populations of non-Western countries have grown, and as their economies have developed, their share of global GDP has risen. In 1990, the West accounted for 60% of global GDP. Over the last two decades, the West’s share has fallen to around 45%. And it will decline further over the next two decades.
Why does this matter?
Although some countries punch above or below their weight, a country’s power can be roughly approximated by its share of global GDP. The U.S. and China have by far the largest economies, and they are the two most powerful. Large economies can afford to spend more on their armed forces, thereby projecting greater military power. They also have more leverage in the economic sphere, where sanctions and trade deals are the tools of statecraft.
Liechtenstein may have the highest standard of living, but it doesn’t get a major say in world affairs because its overall economy is tiny.
This year, challenges to Western hegemony have been more apparent than in any year since the end of the Cold War. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is the most obvious example. But there was also China’s response to Nancy Pelosi’s “provocative” trip to Taiwan, and Iran’s decision to supply Russia with attack drones for use in Ukraine.
Just as revealing as what these three ‘revisionist’ powers have done, is what most other countries around the world have not done, namely sanction Russia. Despite considerable diplomatic pressure from the U.S., they’ve opted to maintain normal economic relations with Moscow.
Meanwhile, the BRICS alliance has sought to expand its membership, as it develops an alternative reserve currency to rival the dollar. And OPEC openly defied the U.S. by announcing oil production cuts at precisely the moment that benefits Russia.
The challenge facing the U.S. and its Western allies is illustrated in a recent report by Roberto Foa and colleagues. Using data from several international surveys, these researchers examined public perceptions of Russia, China and the U.S. in different countries around the world.
Their main finding was as follows. Although most countries have favourable views of the U.S., outside the West most countries also have favourable views of Russia and China. This finding is shown in the chart below.
Developing countries – which account for roughly half of global GDP – view Russia and China just as favourably as the U.S. It is only among developed countries where opinion of Russia and China has grown substantially less favourable.
Given how difficult it proved for the U.S. and its allies to isolate Russia (a declining power), isolating China will be all but impossible. Most countries simply don’t want to pick sides. As China’s economy grows, it will therefore be increasingly able to challenge Western hegemony.
The world, it seems, is returning to multipolarity. And Western countries may just have to live with it.
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“…the CCC blasted the Government for not providing evidence for those claims.”
That’s the finest bit of hypocrisy I’ve ever heard in my entire life. Committees are usually a bunch of naive, self-important, pompous c***s at the best of time, but these lads are lacking so much self awareness that I can only laugh.
Where is YOUR evidence, you absolute bags of sh*t? This CCC is pushing for the destruction of civilisation, without any evidence all while censoring actual data, and yet they “blast” and “advise” and “condemn”. Hell upon them all. Livid.
Nicely put. I share your outrage.
The head of the CCC Gummer (Lord Deben to fellow members of the cartel) & family all have investments up the arse in so-called ‘renewables’. As do most other cockroaches of the House. That’s the problem. Until there’s a drone strike on the CCC and the climate change act is consigned to the dustbin of history it’s all systems go and hello again 17th century..
Opinion polls have to be taken with a pinch of salt, but they seem to suggest that a lot of people support net zero in principle but go off the idea once they realise the cost they’ll have to pay. Therefore if the government simply scrapped the climate change act they could loose a lot of support. A better approach might be to keep a commitment to reach net zero, but amend the act to say that policies to reduce emissions should only be introduced if it can be shown they won’t increase costs for ordinary people. Since EVs, heat pumps, renewable energy etc. are currently more expensive than fossil fuel alternatives this would rule them out while the government would still look like it wanted to do ‘the right thing’. An alternative would be to commit to reduce emissions in line with global commitments to reduce emissions. Given that China, India and loads of other countries are building huge numbers of coal fired power stations and their emissions are going to keep increasing for a least a decade this would mean we have to do nothing for ages as we’ve already cut emissions since 1990 and it’s unlikely China etc. will ever go back to the same level of emissions they produced 30 years ago.
It’s time for the people to wake up and see this insanity for what it is. A massive scam against the people of this country and across the globe.
“hello again 17th century.” Optimistic I’d say they want us back in caves or dead preferably.
You will be dead soon, if you had the Vax.
https://youtu.be/42uoERKuzo4?si=5g1xq6__4RXrE4ff
Cancer is almost always fatal .
Vote Reform Party.
The environmental and climate hysterics have had a free ride for decades and I’m hoping that enough people are now awake that they can be seen off. Paul Ehrlich wrote The Population Bomb in 1968 and none of his dire predictions have come true, but has he changed his tune? Of course he hasn’t. Here are a small sample of quotes from a number determined misanthropes. These people and others are listened to without scrutiny as if they are scientists, but they are not:
Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun Paul Ehrlich
We contend that the position of the nuclear promoters is preposterous beyond the wildest imaginings of most nuclear opponents, primarily because one of the purported ‘benefits’ of nuclear power, the availability of cheap and abundant energy, is in fact a liability.
Paul Ehrlich
A cancer is an uncontrolled multiplication of cells; the population explosion is an uncontrolled multiplication of people. We must shift our efforts from the treatment of the symptoms to the cutting out of the cancer Paul Ehrlich
The addition of a temporary sterilant to staple food, or to the water supply. With limited distribution of antidote chemicals, perhaps by lottery Paul Ehrlich
We set a goal to get to net-zero, rather than zero emissions, in 10 years because we aren’t sure that we’ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast.’ Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez [AOC]
I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are, and how hopeful it is that we are going to solve this crisis’ Al Gore
The facts are there that we have created, man has, a self-inflicted wound that man has created through global warming. Arnold Schwarzenegger
Effective execution of Agenda 21 will require a profound reorientation of all human society, unlike anything the world has ever experienced a major shift in the priorities of both governments and individuals and an unprecedented redeployment of human and financial resources. This shift will demand that a concern for the environmental consequences of every human action be integrated into individual and collective decision-making at every level.’ UN
Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?’ Maurice Strong
In order to stabilize world population, we must eliminate 350,000 per day
Jacques Cousteau
A reasonable estimate for an industrialized world society at the present North American material standard of living would be 1 billion. At the more frugal European standard of living, 2 to 3 billion would be possible
UN Commission on Global Biodiversity
In fact, the life of all mankind is in danger because of global warming resulting to a large degree from the emissions of the factories of the major corporations; yet despite that, the representative of these corporations in the White House insists on not observing the Kyoto accord, with the knowledge that the statistics speak of the death and displacement of millions of human beings because of global warming, especially in Africa
Osama bin Laden
More evidence here:
https://www.c3headlines.com/global-warming-quotes-climate-change-quotes.html
Apologies – I posted before reading the comments.
Not at all. Great minds hux
The globalist shills at the unelected CCC should be referred to the article above and the link to an excellent piece by Michael Kelly on the insane cost of attempting to achieve Net Zero in the US. It is of course an enormous scam to impoverish us all and exert control over every aspect of our lives. This corrupt cabal, with their noses in the trough, threatening the equally compromised Government that set them up so that we the people can be fined or imprisoned for non compliance and colluding with big corporations is,indeed,despicable.
Out with it – don’t hold back!
“Climate Change Committee Warns That Sunak’s Watering Down of Net Zero Increases the Risk of Britain Failing to Meet its 2050 Target”
Good.
He should sack all the members of the Climate Change Committee (and legions of associated hanger-ons).
And if he doesn’t have the power to do that, he should make sure no taxpayer funding (theft) is used to support the boondoggle.
But he won’t.
Good, get the torpedoes in the water and sink the CCC, IPCC and any other insane AGW adherents. We can burn their carbon too.
In other news, fire insurance companies say that fires are like really dangerous and will surely become more common, and local companies in the waste management business express concern that your shop might get smashed up unless you donate to their benevolent fund.
These people sound like the Saudi clerics of the Net Zero religion.
Who the **** are the climate change committee and why do they have any say whatsoever on my life?
It’s SAGE all over again. If you appoint a committee of experts and give them prestige and power and money and career advancement, they are not going to say “oh, nothing to see here, move on, we’re not needed, let’s disband ourselves”.
The committee is a creature of the government.
They’re decidedly worse than SAGE as they’re formally above the government (let alone parliament) and not only informally. Existing legislation binds all UK governments to the 2050 Net Zero target and the CCC are the overseers responsible for ensuring that everyone sticks to the plan.
Probably worse in that the “climate emergency” is even harder to spot than the “pandemic” so there’s no obvious endpoint to it. Towards 2050 they can make up some other rubbish to prolong it.
I only have my memories of the recent DS article which implied this (and don’t even remember the article itself) but if both are correct, the CCC is formally the real government of the UK in all but the name and all of this continued voting for MPs and other such irrelevant procedures just exists to throw sand into people’s eyes. They’re the Net Zero overseers tasked with cracking the legal whip if something doesn’t seem to be moving according to plan.
They are a result of the Climate Change Act 2008. The current government could repeal that, if they wished to. But they haven’t. A few possibilities spring to mind:
1) They believe in Nut Zero. I don’t buy that – they are not that stupid.
2) They don’t believe in Nut Zero but they don’t think they would have the votes from some Tory MPs to repeal it. I don’t but this either, though the bit about not having the votes may be true.
3) They don’t believe in Nut Zero but they fear the international reaction if they step out of line. For example, I can easily see a Truss situation where the “markets” decide they want to bring down the government because they don’t like its policies. I think this is plausible.
4) They don’t believe in Nut Zero but it furthers other aims and/or they are doing it to please their global puppet masters. Also plausible.
Why not try a simple explanation? Sunak needs to conduct an election campaign in the not-too-distant future. For this, he needs truckloads of money. As always, Tony ‘my friends can call me Josef’ Blair is the gatekeeper for people with a real lot of money who are willing to put it into election campaigns of parties supporting their political agendas. And hence, it is hard for Sunak to kick against the pricks. Plus he couldn’t care less what will or won’t be happening in 2050 because by that time, he’ll certainly be in a very comfortable overseas retirement if he has proven to be a trustworthy ally of his financiers. At least, that’s the plan.
Indeed – very plausible.
Featured here recently. It’s an expert panel created by the late or rather, undead and thus, forever ranting and raving on, New Labour government supposed to oversee the Net Zero implementation of future UK governments and to provide advice on how to achieve it this goal.
With many of the things they say they are so far from being “experts” that the term is simply rubbish. They are jumped up little jerks in it for the money. I presume they are on a percentage of the taxes they waste, because there has to be a good reason to even think renewables can power Britain. Starmer is as bad, he wants more wind turbines to stand stationary when the weather doesn’t blow hard enough (which is surprisingly often)! Hot air from politicians doesn’t work although that was promised as the backstop. LOL.
We will fail to meet our 2050 targets, due to the fact that we don’t have the cheap and effective technology yet. It doesn’t exist. End of story.
The deliberate use of the weasel-word ‘our’ by those who know best, is no doubt intended to impart a sense of ownership and shared endeavour . . . ‘our NHS’, ‘our Net Zero target’, ‘our Diversity’.
None of which I accept.
They are certainly not mine either.
Oh no. Boo hoo.
“Rishi Sunak has become engaged in a row with the Climate Change Committee”
Has he though? Or is this just act 2 of the pantomime? As long as Millipede’s climate change act exists it’s all systems go and nothing is getting watered down.
Climate Change Committee: The CCC working for the CCP
So the CCC says “Electric vehicles will be significantly cheaper than petrol and diesel vehicles to own and operate over their lifetimes” but that’s just another one of their many lies. Insurance alone for electric vehicles will rise into the thousands per year due to their high write off risk. I do 25,000 miles a year in my diesel Renault. My fuel bill is under £3000 a year. I get almost 800 miles from a full tank. I paid £5995 4 years ago for it second hand. My insurance, for my sins, is about £650 a year.
A Tesla Model 3 costs £43,000 or more. It has a real range of about 200 miles. It costs £29 to fully charge from a home charger. 25,000 miles is going to work out at £4000 a year and this assumes no expensive motorway services or commercial charging. Per a recent Daily Sceptic article by way of The Guardian many Tesla owners are finding their insurance is going to cost £4000 a year or more.
So, CCC, flat out lying, just as they lie about the need for Net Zero to even exist, let alone be the UK’s major policy target for many bankrupting years to come. But I doubt you’ll see the BBC “Verify” morons pointing that out.
So the CCC says “Electric vehicles will be significantly cheaper than petrol and diesel vehicles to own and operate over their lifetimes” but that’s just another one of their many lies.
That’s a misunderstanding on your part: The plan is doubtlessly to get this sorted with ever-increasing taxation.
Whilst increasing tax may be the idea, it would now break the economy. No one of any use has any money left, and the people who can afford anything much are the ones who are useless. Lets sack the lot, overpaid prats!
“… in a new assessment published this afternoon, the CCC blasted the Government for not providing evidence for those claims.”
The same CCC that has not produced a scrap of evidence to support its net zero by 2050 position.
Pot – Kettle.
Rules for thee, not for me. And how the word ‘independent’ is abused. There is not a single indepedent thought within the CCC, they run on groupthink.and all are aligned to the idiocy of nut zero.
Electric cars cheaper over their lifetime? They cost more and the fuel is as expensive as petrol at the Garage. A strange thing to say and completely untrue. Then a new battery every few years (my experience with Li-ion camera batteries has not been great) will cost vastly more. Where do these people live? Islington I suppose, where Harrods is a quick tube line ride away!
I wonder if there is criticism of the Israli war. Huge anounts of CO2, N20, NO2 and pollutants, along with all the rebuilding materials for Gaza city, which seems fully destroyed, and it will be worse once they try their ground assault. Its all anti-green and should be banned and Israel pay total reparations. See, thats the UK yearly output in a few days. Net zero my foot!
“… the Climate Change Committee as the advisers claimed his watering down of Net Zero measures will hike costs for families and increase the risk of Britain failing to meet its 2050 target.”
Good news at last!