Turkey has been drawn in to the Georgia crisis. Because the country allowed US aid ships to sail through the Bosphorus to Georgia, Russia has tightened border security checks on Turkish trucks, causing long queues and severe delays to trade. Russia is one of Turkey’s main trading partners, so its sulking could cost the stuttering Turkish economy billions. Ankara has retaliated by tightening its own border controls, and has threatened to withdraw support for Russian membership of the WTO. Given that the latter is an organisation dedicated to free trade, such a threat doesn’t seem inappropriate.
Let’s make climate a culture war!
If the politics of climate change end up polarised, is that so bad? No – it’s disastrous. Or so I’ve long thought. Look at the US – where climate is even more polarised than abortion. Result: decades of flip flopping. Ambition under Clinton; reversal...
