In February, my TED Talk was published.
Drawing on sci-fi, economic theory and history, I explain how deepening divisions among global powers may seriously hinder the world’s ability to fight climate change. Watch video below.
In an interdependent and highly connected world where no individual, group, or nation is self-sufficient enough to reduce the earth’s rapid warming, collective action is needed to develop the technological solutions to fight climate change. However, fierce great power competition could seriously hinder global climate action in three ways: (1) limiting the innovation and spread of low-carbon technologies to a handful of wealthy countries; (2) creating economic inefficiencies that limit competition, raise consumer prices, and reduce consumer welfare; and (3) resulting in a fierce scramble for access to strategic resources that destroys fragile countries and ecosystems.
I conclude the talk with a call to action from scholars, business leaders, and policymakers to make a difference by prioritizing collective action on the key issues that matter to save the planet.
I delivered the TED Talk back in July 2023 at Detroit, Michigan as part of the TED Countdown on Climate Change series.
I had so much fun working on this topic, which is as serious as a topic can get, but also TED conferences are just a lot of fun. It was such a huge honor and privilege to be on that stage.
Zainab Usman 
This brought to mind the recent hike in tariff rates by the US Government for Chinese electric vehicles. America being consumers of about 50% of all forms of vehicles production in the world has clearly put competition ahead of global climate change efforts.
Throughout the 52-century long history of great power competition, human dynamics, technology, and geography are the most consequential and most permanent factors that have shaped the interaction among the great powers. This essay mines the past for lessons about great power competition by examining the structural impact of these factors on the rise and fall of great powers, the balance of power among them, and the character of their relations. In order to aid its analysis, the essay introduces three concepts that have not been discussed in the literature: 1) The system-changers: actors that are not system-makers like the great powers but have the power to change the international system and disrupt the balance of power among the system-makers. 2) The strategic structure of great power competition: a structure that emerges from the interaction of the players’ preferences and determines the best strategies for the players as well as the stable outcomes of their game. The essay argues that the Thucydides Trap does not exist in the US-China rivalry because the strategic structure of this rivalry is that of either a Game of Chicken or a Peace-lover’s Dilemma. Using game theory and geopolitics, the essay is able to make long-term predictions and strategy implications for the US-China rivalry. 3) The peace-lover’s dilemma: an asymmetric game whose stable outcome is the dominance of the more aggressive player (who prefers its own supremacy to sharing power with the other) over the less aggressive player (who prefers sharing power with the other to its own supremacy), hence this is a dilemma for the game’s peace-loving player.
Consider the influence of populism. There are many variants of populism, because populism is less of an ideology than a political strategy, and so populism can come in left-wing forms or right-wing forms, democratic forms or illiberal forms. But a significant swath of the populism ferment we are seeing today, particularly in Europe, is likely to have the effect of straining the cohesion of coalitions that are crucial to countering Russian revisionism. If NATO is indeed an alliance that is rooted in its democratic principles, then the rise of illiberal populism in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, and Poland (to say nothing of France) is likely to somewhat attenuate the ideological bonds that hold the alliance together. The fact that many right-wing populist movements in Europe (and also in the United States) are relatively pro-Russian has the potential to further test the unity of NATO and the European Union in confronting threats from the East.
Please be assured of my highest regards,
Abdul Mumin Rabiu
Thank you very much, It is well articulated and research – based. You are indeed making a contribution to knowledge and literary presentation. However, Unlike the extreme views of conservative or liberal commentators within China or the United States, neither conflict nor cooperation is inevitable. How relations fare in the future is still very much contingent on the choices of both states. If China demonstrates through practice a commitment to economic openness, the US reaction to China’s rising influence in world politics is likely to be more favorable and accommodating. Thank you once again.
Dear Zainab, Economic Openness andGreat Power Competition: Lessons for China and the United States TheUnited States–China relationship is more likely than not to slide into economicand military competition, despite the perhaps best intentions of both states.This new bipolar competition is not inevitable. The key question is whetherboth governments have the self-restraint to limit domestic rent-seekinginterests who will undoubtedly demand protection at home and exclusivity intheir spheres of influence abroad. If not, the new superpowers will, like greatpowers in the past, ‘race’ for economic privileges that can quickly divide theworld up into exclusive blocs. Like the security dilemma, great powers need notactually exclude one another from their economic zones; the fear of exclusionalone is enough to ignite the process of division. There was always somelikelihood of a competitive economic spiral given China’s closebusiness–government relations in a ‘state-capitalist’ economy. Now, for thefirst time in seven decades, there is a chance that the United States, in thegrips of economic nationalism, might abandon its historic policy of free tradeand ignite a new race for economic privilege as well. EuropeanImperialism
Thefirst era of overseas expansion, the so-called Age of Discovery, colonizednearly all of the Western Hemisphere, South and Southeast Asia, and ports alongthe African coast. This era ended with the American Revolution of 1776, whichthrew off the yoke of the British Empire, and the collapse of the SpanishEmpire in Latin America between 1810 and 1825. Important below, Britain steppedinto the void left by Spain’s exit from South America, creating its empire of‘free trade’. Most of the Caribbean remained under the control of variousEuropean states and locked into a highly mercantilist order until the early20th century.
TheImperialism of Free Trade Themost successful and peaceful transition between great power-dominated economiczones occurred in Latin America in the late 19th and early 20th centuriesbetween Great Britain and the United States. This peaceful transition was madepossible by the economic openness of both the fading British and the risingAmerican spheres of influence. Britain ceded responsibility for maintainingregional order to the United States without fear of losing its market access.The United States, in turn, took on new responsibilities, assuming thatpolitical dominance would eventually create economic dominance and becomeself-sustaining. This case is crucial in showing how economic liberalism andthe absence of competition for exclusive economic zones allowed for a peacefultransition of geopolitical leadership between the declining and risinghegemons. Thank you so much. Abdul Mum