Background Briefing: November 14, 2021
Our Fragile Planet Hangs By a Thread With a Meek and Weak COP 26 Agreement
We begin with the final agreement emerging from the COP 26 climate summit in Glasgow in which China joined with India in watering down the language from a “phase out” of coal to a “phase down”. Nevertheless the COP 26 president claimed an historic agreement that keeps the 1.5 degree centigrade limit on rising global temperature “within reach”. Joining us is Laurie Laybourn-Langton, an award-winning researcher and writer and an Associate Fellow at the U.K.’s Institute for Public Policy Research where he leads a project developing policy responses to environmental breakdown. Previously, he was the Director of the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change and has also worked in the House of Lords where he focussed on post-crash macroeconomic policy. He is the co-author of Planet on Fire: A Manifesto for the Age of Environmental Breakdown.
Bannon Will Likely Refuse to Testify and Instead Go To Jail as a Martyr
Then with the Department of Justice indicting Stephen Bannon for criminal contempt of congress, we examine the possibility he will defy the House Select Committee investigating the insurrection and never testify but instead go to jail as a martyr. Joining us is Bill Yeomans, a Lecturer in Law at Columbia Law School who previously served for 26 years in the Department of Justice, serving in a series of positions, including acting Assistant Attorney General.
Is the Saudi Crown Prince the Main Driver of Inflation Dogging Biden?
Then finally, with rising gas prices the main driver of inflation, we examine the role of the murderous Saudi Crown Prince in refusing to help Biden by flooding the market to lower the price of oil as the Saudis have done to help out previous presidents and MBS did for his friend Donald Trump. Joining us is Annelle Sheline, a Research Fellow in the Middle East program at the Quincy Institute and an expert on religious and political authority in the Middle East and North Africa. She has worked as a journalist in Egypt and Yemen, was recently a fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy and is currently completing a book on the strategic use of religious authority in the Arab monarchies since 9/11, focusing on the cases of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Morocco, and Oman.