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Power plants fuelled by coal and gas continue to dominate the global electricity sector – they account for almost two-thirds of power generation, a share that has remained relatively unchanged since 2000 despite the advent of low-cost variable renewable sources. In absolute terms, power generated from fossil fuels has increased by 70% since 2000, reflecting the steady rise in global demand for power. Coal remains by far the largest fuel source for power generation, at 38%, followed by gas at about 20%. In the world’s fastest-growing economies, such as the People’s Republic of China (hereafter, “China”) and India, the coal-fired share of total generation is higher than 60%. While we see a temporary dent in coal generation and higher shares for variable renewables due to the Covid‑19 pandemic, these shares could return to historic trends as electricity demand recovers. Power is the largest carbon emitter in the energy sector, creating almost 40% of global energy-related emissions. Despite the pressing need to confront the major causes of climate change, emissions in 2019 from the power sector were only slightly below their 2018 all time high at 13.6 GtCO2. The global community has committed to the goal of limiting the increase in the average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels The Paris Agreement’s goal is to keep the increase in global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and, in doing so, to pursue efforts to limit the increase to 1.5°C. This has been incorporated into the critical energy-related UN Sustainable Development Goals, which seek in addition to widen access to clean, affordable energy. The global power sector is therefore expected to meet rising demand as access to electricity grows and to provide for a low-carbon future where end-use activities are increasingly electrified. Despite the rapid expansion of renewable energy generation, the sheer scale of current power sector emissions and the vital role of electrification mean that countries must urgently tackle their emissions from power to meet these global climate goals. In effect, the power sector has to dramatically reduce its carbon intensity. A low-carbon future means tackling emissions from the fossil-fuelled power fleet using every means available To meet climate goals, policy makers need to address emissions from existing coal-fired power plants and those being built today. Yet, under current policies stated by governments, while CO2 emissions from the existing coal-fired fleet would decline by approximately 40%, annual emissions would still amount to 6 GtCO2 per year in 2040. Significant additions to coal-fired capacity were still under construction at the start of 2020, highlighting the challenge ahead. Meeting long-term climate goals without applying carbon capture, utilisation and storage technologies at scale in the power sector requires the virtual elimination of coal-fired power generation and, eventually, that of gas-fired generation as well, with significant early retirements and potential for stranded assets. The young age of the global fleet of fossil-fuelled power plants means that about one-quarter of the existing fleet would be retired before reaching the typical 50-year lifespan. Almost one-third of all coal-fired capacity is less than ten years old, the vast majority of which is in Asia. Those kept in operation would likely see substantially reduced operating hours. Under the IEA Sustainable Development Scenario, carbon capture technologies play an important role in supporting modern and flexible power systems The IEA Sustainable Development Scenario outlines a major transformation of the global energy system, showing how the world can deliver the three main energy-related Sustainable Development Goals simultaneously. Under this scenario, carbon capture technologies play an important role in providing dispatchable, low-carbon electricity – in 2040, plants with these technologies generate 5% of global power. CCUS-equipped coal and gas plants become increasingly important for secure, sustainable and affordable power systems in the IEA Sustainable Development Scenario. Meeting climate goals also means creating an extremely flexible power system that can manage high shares of variable renewable power sources. Coal- and gas-fired power plants have been a major source of system flexibility, providing benefits essential to the operation of the electricity grid, such as inertia and frequency control. Carbon capture, storage and utilisation allows these plants to continue providing these benefits and meet long-term flexibility requirements, such as annual seasonality. An emphasis on supporting system flexibility could see some CCUS-equipped coal and gas plants operating at relatively low load factors. However, the unique ability to achieve negative emissions through bioenergy with carbon capture and storage may mean that these plants run at high capacity factors, even in a power system with high renewable shares. This could come at the expense of a reduced contribution to system flexibility but would support economics of scale in CO2 transport and storage infrastructure and maximise climate benefits. Including carbon capture, utilisation and storage in the portfolio of technology options can reduce the total cost of power system transformation. Carbon capture technologies become more competitive in the power system when their flexibility, reliability and carbon intensity are fully valued.

Because both the FBI and DHS have counterterrorism-related missions and a role in gathering and disseminating counterterrorism information, 8 some DHS and FBI officials expressed concerns about potential overlaps in their counterterrorism missions and activities.

Although there is a national-level information sharing strategy, the PMISE determined that its implementation across the information sharing environment has been uneven.

Officials at the Department of Homeland Security told the IG that “federal entities continue to be reluctant to share information into the public collection,” the IG wrote. The officials said some entities have a preference to share “exclusively” within the federal government and others have policy requirements to only share with “their relevant sector among eligible stakeholders.”

The IG also identified tensions among government agencies regarding what information is being shared. Department of Commerce officials said they were concerned that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency could be sharing additional information but did not explain further. Both Justice Department and Pentagon officials told the IG that some entities are hesitant to share cyber threat information because it could jeopardize ongoing operations.

The resources of intelligence and law enforcement will likely be increasingly strained trying to identify and prevent simple, crude terrorist attacks using everyday weapons that require little planning and do not depend on terrorism’s conventional arsenal. Conversely, additional challenges will continue to be presented by the deliberate efforts of a range of adversaries to obviate existing laws and restrictions on weapons through 3D-printing technology and “ghost guns.”

Terrorists are utilizing a spectrum of both simple and innovative weapons to carry out attacks that in some cases minimize planning and logistical preparation and in others effectively render national laws and restrictions on firearms irrelevant. The stabbing, mass shooting and vehicular attacks detailed above are clearly less sophisticated and their perpetrators less capable than their more professional, trained counterparts—such as the multiple Islamic State teams that executed the Paris November 2015 and Brussels March 2016 attacks, largely with sophisticated suicide vests. Nonetheless, they can be just as homicidal. A particular case in point is the truck driven into a crowd of Bastille Day celebrants in Nice in July 2016, which killed 86 persons. Although the death toll from Minassian’s Toronto vehicular rampage was considerably lower, it was no less tragic and underscored the homicidal potential of ramming attacks against archetypal soft targets.

Eyerman 21 [Joe Eyerman is a senior political scientist in the RAND Corporation's Washington office.; Sep 2, 2021; “A Review of Public Data About Terrorism and Targeted Violence to Meet U.S. Department of Homeland Security Mission Needs”; https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA1203-1.html//araghvn

DHS has a strong need for data to support policy and create actionable operational intelligence. These data needs span the gamut of incident types, actors, motivations, and tactics, techniques, and procedures. Many sources are available to support DHS needs. However, some areas, such as cyberthreats and emerging technologies, require new database construction. Although the overall quality of the prominent databases is generally high, the quality assurance and study documentation standards are inconsistently applied, suggesting a need for clearly promulgated requirements.

The Intelligence and Information Sharing capability involves the effective implementation of the intelligence cycle and information integration process by local, state, tribal, territorial, and Federal intelligence entities, the private sector, the public, and international partners, as appropriate, to develop situational awareness on the actor(s), method(s), means, weapon(s), or target(s) related to an imminent terrorist threat within the United States. Incidents over the last decade have demonstrated that the ability to responsibly share information is a prerequisite for preventing terrorist threats to our homeland. No single agency, department, or level of government can independently complete a threat picture of all terrorism and national security threats. With this in mind, the Intelligence and Information Sharing capability involves engagement across local, state, tribal, territorial, Federal, private sector, faith-based organizations, and international partners to facilitate the collection, analysis, and sharing of suspicious activity reports to further support the identification and prevention of terrorist threats; enhance situational awareness of threats, alerts, and warnings; and develop and disseminate risk assessments and analysis of national intelligence to local, state, tribal, territorial, and private sector partners, and across mission areas as appropriate. This capability relies on intelligence and information sharing and analysis from the FBI and DHS field and headquarters elements; state and major urban area fusion centers; and the intelligence community during times of imminent terrorist threat and in accordance with existing laws, directives, and policies. Terrorist-related threat information collected domestically should be shared comprehensively and immediately to FBI JTTFs and other federal entities through the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting (SAR) Initiative (NSI). Terrorism-related information should also be shared promptly with the ODNI National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), DHS, the Terrorist Screening Center (TSC), and other federal agencies as authorized by law. It involves the reprioritization and redirection of law enforcement, intelligence, and homeland security assets, as necessary and appropriate. Amplifying information will also be obtained via law enforcement operations. Together, these efforts inform local policing and enable partners at all levels of government, the private sector, and the public to implement the most effective protective and preventive measures. Finally, the Intelligence and Information Sharing capability recognizes that efforts to identify counterterrorist threats will require ongoing coordination between the aforementioned efforts and other analytic and investigative efforts. This will also include coordination with the international community, as necessary.

Incremental changes are not enough. Policymakers must build a new intelligence system to fight terrorism. The formal, hierarchical, and compartmentalized information strategies of the past need to be replaced with a new architecture featuring flexible, decentralized networks of public and private information providers, analysts, and users. Policymakers should establish procedures to assure access to critical information needed to address national security priorities while taking into account openness and privacy concerns. Public guidelines will ensure that new information strategies are consistent with these goals.

Anti-Terrorism Information Strategies

The first pillar—understanding and sharing domestic-terrorism-related information—aims to improve research and analysis on domestic terrorism trends; improve information sharing both within the government and externally, including dissemination of information to Congress and the public; and better understand and respond to domestic terrorists’ transnational connections.

The second pillar—preventing domestic terrorism recruitment and mobilization to violence—seeks to improve community and individual resilience to violence and disinformation, including through digital and information literacy; support programs that aim to disrupt radicalization pathways and terrorist recruitment efforts, including those specifically targeting veterans; improve public awareness of and access to violence reduction resources; and counter online recruitment and mobilization efforts, including through information sharing with the technology sector.

(3) International cooperation is essential in the fight against terrorism

International terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaeda take full advantage of the characteristics of modern society, including international transportation networks and advanced information and communications technology, thus carrying out operations across national borders. Therefore, it is important that all countries interactively cooperate with each other in a wide range of fields to overcome their vulnerability against terrorist attacks, and deny the terrorists safe havens and means for their activities. It is essential to strengthen international cooperation, since no single state can tackle terrorism alone.

The debate over whether to stick to strategic ambiguity or opt for clarity on U.S. policy toward the defense of Taiwan has been under the spotlight recently. This reflects the rise of instability across the strait, and China’s growing military drills in the region. Taiwan was pointed out as the “most dangerous flashpoint in the world for a possible war,” in a recent Council on Foreign Relations report, rising to a Tier 1 risk for the first time.

U.S. policy toward Taiwan and cross-strait issues has a profound impact on the peace and stability of the region. Any actions by the parties in the China-Taiwan-U.S. triangular relationship will set off a chain of reactions, for better or for worse. Therefore, determining whether strategic ambiguity or clarity can best maintain peace and stability in the region is of vital importance. We argue that the long-standing policy of strategic ambiguity employed by the United States can best keep Taiwan safe and deter China from attempting an amphibious invasion or any sorts of military blockade to cut off the island.

The United States and China conducted a record $690 billion in combined trade last year. Protectionist policies will result in lower figures for 2023, but China will remain a top American trading partner. This intertwined trade relationship highlights that America has everything in the world to gain from smart, tough and effective competition with China — and everything to lose if relations deteriorate to the point of direct armed conflict.

War with China is neither inevitable nor necessary, but actions and policies currently being pursued in both Beijing and Washington are mindlessly drifting towards a clash.

While WHO officials are certainly not beyond reproach, much of the recent criticism reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the WHO and its mission. Many critics seem to imagine the organization as a global epidemic rescue unit that puts out fires wherever they occur. Yet that is simply not the role the WHO was built to fulfill, nor has it ever been possible for it to do so, given the structural limitations that confine the organization.

The World Health Organization was established in 1948 as part of a broader attempt to reconfigure international relations and establish a lasting postwar order, centered around the United Nations, that would guarantee peace and prosperity. It was founded as a U.N. specialized agency with a broad mandate to promote “the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health,” and it defines “health” as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being.”

The WHO acceded a year ago to Chinese government pressure to acknowledge traditional Chinese medicine, since revealed as a plausible source of the Covid-19 pandemic. At the time the coronavirus was leaping from animal to human hosts in Wuhan in October 2019, CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping was telling a conference in Beijing that he applauded ‘efforts to promote [traditional Chinese medicine] internationally and fully develop its unique strength in preventing and treating diseases’. For some years he had been lobbying the WHO to recognise traditional Chinese medicine as a legitimate form of medical treatment. In May 2019, the WHO’s governing body bowed to Beijing’s pressure.

Scientists and public health specialists were appalled. One was quoted as saying that the WHO’s ‘failure to specifically condemn the use of traditional chinese medicine utilising wild animal parts is egregiously negligent and irresponsible’.

The Covid-19 pandemic should be a wakeup call that there is something very wrong—irreparable, even—at the World Health Organization. This revelation shouldn’t come as a surprise. After all, the WHO is a constituent of the relentlessly incompetent and politicized United Nations.

From the beginning, government officials, health experts, and analysts have raised concerns about the WHO’s bungled response to the coronavirus, accusing the organization of misplaced trust in the Chinese government, which initially tried to conceal the outbreak in Wuhan. Taro Aso, Japan’s deputy prime minister and finance minister, even derided the WHO as the “Chinese Health Organization.” Rather than taking Beijing to task for its attempted cover-up, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus praised Chinese president Xi Jinping for his “very rare leadership” and lauded the Chinese Communist Party’s “transparency” in responding to the virus. Few would dispute that Tedros and the WHO acted tardily in declaring a global health emergency and, thereafter, a pandemic. But the most recent WHO blunder beggars belief.

It is no secret that the World Health Organization (WHO) is grossly underfunded. As its Executive Board meets this week to discuss how it can become the global health institution the world needs and wants, all eyes will be on whether the WHO can finally solve the problem of its precarious financing.

But there is even more at stake in this debate than the WHO’s own financial health. If a financial fix can be found for what ails the WHO, there will likely be ripple effects for the ways member states fund entities across the United Nations system whose funding structures are equally shaky. It is the possibility of these downstream consequences – including the potential liabilities that action at the WHO could place on reform efforts in other UN entities – that is one of the greatest political challenges to fixing the WHO’s balance sheet.

The year 2023 was a record year for disease elimination, with several countries eliminating infectious diseases thanks to dedicated national efforts, and collaborative action by countries and health partners worldwide.

In March, WHO certified Azerbaijan and Tajikistan malaria-free, followed by Belize in June. Malaria affects some of the world’s most vulnerable people, and these extraordinary achievements demonstrate how a malaria-free future can become a reality.

Today, the WHO monitors and coordinates activities concerning many health-related issues, including genetically modified foods, climate change, tobacco and drug use, and road safety. The WHO is also an arbiter of norms and best practices. Since 1977, the organization has maintained a list of essential medicines it encourages hospitals to stock; it has since made a similar list of diagnostic tests. The agency also provides guidance on priority medical devices, such as ventilators and X-ray and ultrasound machines.

Some of the WHO’s most lauded successes include its child vaccination programs, which contributed to the eradication of smallpox in 1979 and a 99 percent reduction in polio infections in recent decades, and its leadership during the 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic. The agency has the exclusive authority to declare global health emergencies, which it has done several times since its members granted it the power in 2007. At present, the WHO’s work includes combating the COVID-19 pandemic and other emergencies, as well as promoting refugees’ health.

It’s a little-known fact that the World Health Organization (WHO) lives a hand-to-mouth existence. Governments contribute most of its annual US$6-billion budget, but the WHO is allowed to spend less than 20% of this on its core mission, which is to support public health in the poorest countries and respond to emergencies around the world. Much of the rest consists of voluntary donations earmarked for projects specified by donors, such as eliminating polio or treating HIV/AIDS.

The governments of most of the WHO’s member states are now rightly saying that the agency needs more-predictable funding, as well as the flexibility to decide when and how to spend a greater proportion of its budget — during a pandemic, for example. They should consider how to move ahead with implementing this plan despite the fact that a small number of countries are opposing it.

The biggest flaw in their argument involves allied state behavior if this strategy became operative. This approach argues that it exploits the capabilities of regional players in their own neighborhood where they have vital interests in order to preserve stability.  Instead of risking resource overstretch by the extensive investment in building up and posturing U.S. military forces around the globe, Japan, South Korea and our NATO allies would be expected to provide more for their own national and regional security commensurate with their interests.  These major regional powers would police themselves in their interaction with other powers. 

But this assumes that regional powers share our interests and have the will and capacity to stabilize the region.  China’s actions (and Russia’s in the Black Sea or Iran’s in the Persian Gulf) suggest that these assumptions are frail.  Mearsheimer and Walt fail to consider the possibility that such countries will not take advantage or operate against U.S. allies negatively.  Their hope is an illusion belied by the rising level of geopolitical competition of the last several years.  Withdrawal from East Asia and the Pacific or Europe is not likely to have a stabilizing effect on these region.  This produces a very reactive strategy that arguably increases the chances of a war breaking out, for example in Korea or in the South China Sea. 

Over the weekend, the Philippines and China, which have been locked in a tense stand-off around the Second Thomas Shoal for months  to deescalate tensions. While potentially positive, we believe that the long-term risk of conflict in the South China Sea remains alarmingly high. Our  shows that China’s military coercion is more rampant than previously documented and disproportionately directed at the Philippines, the weakest link in the chain of U.S. alliances in Asia.

Recent skirmishes near Second Thomas Shoal, an obscure reef about 100 miles west of the Philippines’ Palawan Island, have brought this issue into sharp focus. The Philippines maintains  there, using a rusty shipwreck as a makeshift base for a handful of marines. An international court  that the area lies within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone. But China rejected the ruling and has repeatedly attempted to block resupply missions to the outpost by blinding Philippine crew members with .