338: Carbon Security & the Geopolitics of Carbon Removal—w/ Sarah Godek

What is geopolitics, and has it returned? Did it ever really leave? And how will this affect the future prospects of carbon removal?

Today's guest is Sarah Godek, a Washington DC-based international relations researcher. She and Grant Faber co-wrote an article on Carbon-Based Commentary called, "Carbon security and the geopolitics of carbon removal".

We discuss the tension between strategic liberalism and realism, how the world is changing under the second Trump Administration, as well as if and how the Great Game is currently being played and what implications that has for climate change and CDR.

N.B. Regarding the point about Eastern Europe in the introduction, much of my reading on the region has highlighted its former status as a bustling and fervent cultural mixing place. I think I was a bit too subtle in pointing to this understanding. See: A History of Eastern Europe from The Great Courses, or Shtetl by Eva Hoffman.

Resources

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"Carbon security and the geopolitics of carbon removal"

Graham Allison's Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap?

Robert Axelrod's The Evolution of Cooperation

Kevin Rudd's The Avoidable War: The Dangers of a Catastrophic Conflict between the US and Xi Jinping's China

John Pomfret's The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: America and China, 1776 to the Present

Tencent's CarbonX program

Raj M. Shah & Christopher Kirchhoff's Unit X: How the Pentagon and Silicon Valley Are Transforming the Future of War

Go watch In the Loop, Veep, and The Death of Stalin.