NATIONAL NAVEL-GAZING: The next vaccine challenge is nationalism, explains Luiza Savage. Developing the vaccine is hard, but so is manufacturing billions of pharmaceutical-grade glass vials, rubber stoppers and packages, then keeping the vaccines cold — a particular challenge while distributing them across developing countries.
Listen to our deep dive into the topic on this week’s Global Translations podcast episode.
And see how we mapped the various (and often competing) national vaccine efforts here.
GLOBAL TRANSIT SYSTEMS FACE A COVID RECKONING
Iconic transport maps of the world’s big cities are not only examples of great design (check out New York’s new live subway map), they also chart power, ambition and identity. Few today can imagine New York without the subway, Paris without the metro, or London without the Tube or its iconic red double-decker buses.
Transit systems also symbolize the vaulting progress of new and returning powers. When Global Translations first visited Beijing in 2003, during this century’s first pandemic (SARS), you could ride two and half subway lines. Today there are 26 lines. Seoul’s network has 728 stations, dwarfing New York City’s 472.
The great shift to city living has been among the biggest social structural changes of the last century: the majority of people worldwide now live in cities and towns. That trend risks stalling if transit systems drown in mounting pandemic-related financial losses, starved of riders and money.
HOW BAD ARE THE RIDERSHIP LOSSES? Buses are doing much better than trains, partly thanks to the ability of riders to control the ventilation (windows). Stuart Green, a spokesperson for the Toronto Transit Commission, said his agency has had to add buses because of a surge in riders.
Among train services, those in Shenzhen, China and Taipei, Taiwan were the first to bounce back to more than 80 percent of usual ridership by May. Seoul metro ridership never fell by more than a third and construction to extend 11 of the network’s 23 lines continues.
European capitals rank in the middle, with most recording around half their usual riders before the latest round of lockdowns.
North American systems are faring the worst, thanks to the high rate of car ownership in the region and the fact that many schools and offices remain closed. While a majority of Americans told Morning Consult they have favorable views of public transit (64 percent) and passenger rail (65 percent), an increase from pre-pandemic levels, they’ve yet to vote with their feet. In Washington D.C., Toronto and New York’s MetroNorth systems, ridership is down 80 percent, as users revert to cars or stay home.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND TRANSIT AUTHORITIES LOCKED IN A DEATH SPIRAL: Big cities — the engines of global GDP — can’t fully recover without fully functioning transit. But state and local governments also can’t subsidize transit if they’re broke. U.S. states could be out of pocket $434 billion in the three years between 2020 and 2022 if there’s no additional federal stimulus, Moody’s Analytics reports. Lack of transit revenue often compounds those deficits.
The International Association of Public Transport (UITP), based in Brussels, estimates that European mass transit agencies will collectively face a $45 billion fare shortfall in 2020 alone, leaving them “literally fighting to survive,” according to a group of European transit CEOs.
Systems like New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) face a similar problem, one compounded by a failure to sufficiently invest in modern infrastructure in recent decades. And if there’s one thing riders hate more than expensive transit, it’s delayed or infrequent service.
While you might think that low interest rates would make now a great time for transit authorities to borrow money, their credit ratings are facing downgrades, pushing up the cost of borrowing.
That leaves authorities stuck between choices like raising fares, cutting services, or declaring bankruptcy. Berlin’s BVG and New York’s MTA are considering raising ticket prices, while Washington D.C.’s MTA has warned it may have to make $200 million worth of cuts to services, a move New York already made.
TRANSIT PROBLEMS DEEPEN INEQUALITY: Whether you raise prices or cut services, deeper inequality is one of the first results. In the U.S., Black individuals are three times as likely as white individuals to use public transport, Pew Research found. Youth and immigrant communities also use public transport at much greater rates. Overlapping those numbers is the reality that the poorer you are, the more likely you are to use public transport. The Transit Center — a nonprofit that advocates for good transit as a means to just and sustainable cities — has much more, including an interactive map and report modeling the effects of service cuts in different U.S. cities.
COPING MECHANISMS: Instead of across-the-board service cuts, groups like Transit Center recommend focusing on maintaining the most-used routes as much as possible, an approach San Francisco took.
Living the dream — Luxembourg has removed fares altogether: The country of just 600,000, the richest in the EU, abolished all standard class fares on all forms of public transport in 2019, saving the typical user $485 a year.
European governments have generally been more willing to subsidize transit losses than in the U.S., though train-loving Joe Biden may alter that dynamic if elected president: he is championing zero-emissions public transportation for every American city with 100,000 or more residents.
“Transit ridership is a health and economic indicator,” Janette Sadik-Khan, the former commissioner of New York City’s Department of Transportation, told my colleague Danielle Muoio. A healthy economy generates riders, and riders help the economy hum, she said.
HOW SAFE IS PUBLIC TRANSPORT? The general rule during the coronavirus pandemic is that the modes of transportation with the best ventilation and least crowds are safest. The CDC drew backlash in June, however, for advising U.S. commuters to drive alone to work instead of using public transport. That advice followed a non-peer reviewed paper by an MIT economist claiming the New York subway was a Covid-19 superspreader network. The paper was panned by experts, and the CDC ended up tweaking its guidance.
The International Union for Public Transport (UITP) says transit is “Covid-safe” and rejects the CDC advice. They cite University of Colorado research showing well-ventilated metro systems are Covid-safe up to 70 minutes, and bus rides for even longer. Transport for London, which runs the city’s underground trains and other services, tested air and surfaces in September, and found no traces of coronavirus in its network, while RSSB, a UK rail safety body, concluded that the risk of catching the coronavirus while traveling by train was “1 in 20,000 journeys” when wearing a mask.
Japanese researchers have not been able to identify transport cluster outbreaks, while French transport minister Jean-Baptiste Djebbari said Oct. 25 that less than one percent of clusters could be traced to public transport.
SAFETY INNOVATIONS:
The most basic: Transit workers face a higher risk than occasional users. A New York University pilot study published Oct. 20, for example, found that nearly one quarter of approximately 3,000 New York City transit employees surveyed had a history of Covid-19 infections. While it’s becoming common for transit workers to benefit from screens walling them off from passengers, even small cities like Santa Cruz, Calif. are extending those and other safety features to passengers, including “hand sanitizer dispensers at the front of the bus and sneeze barriers between each row of seats and a curtain separating the bus operator and passengers on all buses.”
The digital: The German transport association RMV, operating in and around Frankfurt, displays occupancy predictions. When they’re too high, the trip planner suggests alternative routes. Other European systems in Zurich and Copenhagen now suggest multi-modal routes — bicycles, scooters, car-sharing, and public transport — to help riders keep their distance.
BIKES FOR THE WIN: While public transit may be safe, “the winner of the pandemic is the bicycle,” according to Michael Frankenberg, CEO of Hacon, a mobility software company. “Many cities have been very agile in re-purposing streets for pop-up cycling lanes.” The United Kingdom plans to invest $2.57 billion to make many of those changes permanent, while the city of Bogotá, Colombia, aims to increase the share of bicycle trips from 7 percent to half of all commutes, including for first and last mile elements of longer commutes. Berlin used drones to conduct aerial surveys in order to deploy ‘pop-up’ cycling lanes according to demand on the streets.
9 TO 5 IS GONE: That’s according to Alex Williams, director of city planning at the Transport for London: “I think more people will want to work in a flexible way where they are coming into the office a few days a week,” he said. Large employers can also shape the patterns and safety of transit travel by staggering shifts in the office. Rotating workers between different days or times in the office may help to reduce transit crowding at peak hours, Transit Center argues.
REALITY CHECK CORNER
PREDICTABLE GLOBAL VIRUS RESURGENCE: The coronavirus is hitting Europe’s highest offices, with Polish President Andrzej Duda and Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov testing positive, and French President Emmanuel Macron presiding over his country’s worst outbreak yet, triggering a new national lockdown. Dutch hospitals are already full, while Russia’s are at 90 percent capacity. India’s cases are climbing again, and Iran is at record daily deaths. All of this is what scientists told us would happen in the absence of strict vigilance and a vaccine. When it comes to the former, China still leads the way among major countries: Beijing is locking down parts of the city again after a few dozen cases were identified.
VACCINES DON’T DO POLITICAL TIMELINES: Pfizer’s admission Monday that it still doesn’t know whether its coronavirus vaccine works is a dose of reality for the historic global vaccine race. While U.S. government officials continue to insist a vaccine will be ready for all Americans by spring 2021, the EU now warns there will not be not enough COVID vaccines for all in Europe until 2022.
CHINESE MILLENNIALS OUTNUMBER ALL AMERICANS: They also prefer iPhones to democracy, and don’t see their country becoming a superpower, but rather returning to its former superpower status.
GDP — A REBOUND WITHOUT GROWTH: Third-quarter U.S. GDP data shows a 33.1 percent boost, at an annualized rate, compared to the second quarter’s collapse. But this is not a year-on-year gain, like China’s third quarter figures. “You would need 46 percent growth in the third quarter just to get back to where we were,” Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, told my colleague Ben White. Or, as MSNBC anchor Stephanie Ruhle memorably put it: “You lost 100 bucks. You got 60 back.”
SOLUTIONS
ETHIOPIA — NEW BANKNOTES BRING MILLIONS INTO FINANCIAL SYSTEM: Issuing new banknotes to stamp out counterfeiting has achieved an important side effect this year in Ethiopia: At least 1.3 million people are now part of the financial system, having traded in old currency for the equivalent value on bank cards. The new notes are also driving down corruption and illegal trade, Bloomberg reported.
Emerging countries are taking the lead with digital currencies: To expand access to financial services and shore up confidence, Cambodia’s national bank has launched the Bakong system, which allows anyone with a phone number to make payments and transfers.
Read our full Global Tech Spotlight. This week we talk to PwC’s Will Morris and Tax Foundation’s Daniel Bunn about a tug-of-war between the United Nations and the OECD over who should set the global standards for digital taxation.
SEARCHING FOR A NEW INTERNET BUSINESS MODEL: It’s not only taxes that officials want to levy. Regulators, lawmakers and campaigners want to fundamentally reshape the digital economy.
IN THE SPOTLIGHT: Twitter’s General Counsel Vijaya Gadde is reshaping Twitter’s free-speech policies. Five takeaways from the latest congressional grilling of tech CEOs.
UBER LAWSUIT OVER ALGORITHMIC DISMISSAL: An App Drivers & Couriers Union has filed a legal case in an Amsterdam court against Uber on behalf of three drivers in the U.K. and Portugal, over what the drivers say was an unfair dismissal by algorithm. The drivers say they were wrongly accused of “fraudulent activity” and fired with no right of appeal. The case will test the reach of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation rules against unfair automated decision making. The activists behind the action, Yaseen Aslam and James Farrar, previously took Uber to court in London and Amsterdam over worker status and data ownership issues.
CHINA — LITERAL POWER PLAY: Check out this interactive China’s Global Power Database from Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center, which maps China-financed power plants around the world, including their estimated carbon emissions. Between 2000 and 2018, Chinese companies and policy banks have invested in 777 power plants overseas. Indonesia, Brazil and Pakistan are the top three recipients of Chinese overseas energy investment. The map is of particular interest as China moves toward carbon neutrality at home by 2060: like many Western lenders, Chinese banks enable massive pollution outside their domestic market. h/t Maureen Heydt
Energy is not a Chinese investment outlier: According to the 2019 China Outbound Direct Investment Statistical Report, more than 27,500 Chinese investors have established 44,000 direct investment enterprises in 188 countries.
ELECTIONS THIS COMING WEEK: In the countries of Georgia, Moldova and Palau, a tiny island state. Georgia’s parliamentary election sees 66 parties facing off, with the country’s former leader Mikheil Saakashvili running for prime minister while in exile in Ukraine.
NUCLEAR WEAPONS BAN ENTERS INTO FORCE JANUARY: 50 countries have ratified a U.N. treaty to ban nuclear weapons, triggering its entry into force Jan. 22, Honduras was the 50th signatory. No nuclear-armed governments have signed up to the treaty, which makes it purely symbolic for the time being.
CHILE — DICTATORSHIP-ERA CONSTITUTION SCRAPPED IN LANDSLIDE: Four in five voters agreed to scrap the country’s 1980 constitution in a referendum called after mass protests last year over inequality. “In critics’ eyes the constitution is not just ‘neoliberal’ but ‘hyper presidential,’” The Economist reported. “It gives the president the power to dictate which bills get priority in Congress. Members may not propose tax or spending bills. Regions cannot raise their own revenues, which concentrates power in Santiago.”
US 2020
In this week’s Campaign Confidential podcast episode we look at the defining moments of the 2020 general election campaign.
ON OUR RADAR: How the world would go about reassessing its long-term relationship with the U.S., should President Donald Trump win a second term.
BY THE NUMBERS …
CEO political donations: Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and allied outside groups received $79.5 million from his top 100 CEO donors to Trump’s $75 million. But if you take out Michael Bloomberg and Sheldon Adelson, the top CEO donors, respectively, to each campaign, then the advantage flips to Trump and affiliated groups, $33 million to $23 million, reported Theo Francis. The U.S. caps the amount individual donors can give to candidates, but does not limit how much they give to Super PACS that support said candidates, through television ads and other activities.
Why Trump needs to suppress the vote to win: Because he won the presidency with 46 percent of the popular vote, his average approval rating has never hit 50 percent, and his 2020 two-party poll results remain well under 50 percent, write David Siders and Zach Montellaro.
BIDEN AND GLOBAL POWERS: Biden takes pride in suggesting he’s met virtually every world leader. While he’s met a lot of them, it’s a fact that heads of state or government have changed around 200 times since 2017, when Biden stepped down as vice president (some countries have had multiple changes of leadership). At a minimum, there are dozens of leaders Biden has never met.
Threats and competitors: Biden said this week that Russia is America’s biggest threat and China it’s biggest competitor.
Latin America: Christian Paz took a look at what a Biden presidency would mean for Latin America.
Canada: In POLITICO’s new Canadian politics newsletter “Corridors,” Maura Forrest spoke to Canadian diplomats and lobbyists about what they stand to lose if Trump loses: from a handy political foil to the Keystone XL pipeline. Read more here on how Canada may try to sell Biden on Keystone 2.0.
LEADERS WHOSE STOCKS IN DC WILL RISE OR FALL WITH A BIDEN WIN:
Who’s on better footing under Biden: The European Union, Justin Trudeau (Canada), Angela Merkel (Germany), Emmanuel Macron (France), Michael Martin (Ireland), Jacinda Ardern (New Zealand).
Who risks distance or isolation: Vladimir Putin (Russia), Kim Jong Un (North Korea), Recep Tayyip Erdogan (Turkey), Jair Bolsonaro (Brazil), Rodrigo Duterte (Philippines), Viktor Orban (Hungary), Benjamin Netanyahu (Israel), Mohammed bin Salman (Saudi Arabia), Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi (Egypt).
WHERE AMERICA IS HEADED NEXT:
Voters: Generation Z look a lot like Millenials on key social and political issues in a new Pew Research Center report. “Gen Z and Millennial responses are almost the same, save one topic: gender identity. Gen Z is much more likely to know someone who uses neutral pronouns,” noted Republican pollster Kristin Soltis Anderson.
Courts: You can alter the Supreme Court’s power balance by packing it with extra justices — as many Democrats would like — but also by stripping it of jurisdiction or codifying certain rights, argues Kia Rahnama.
WTO — U.S. MAY VETO NIGERIAN CANDIDATE: Nigeria’s Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has the most support to become next global trade chief, but the U.S. is blocking her candidacy, saying it would continue to back South Korean candidate Yoo Myung-hee. The final decision is set for Nov. 9.
BEHIND THE DIPLOMATIC CURTAIN — MACRON ACCUSED OF HOSTILE WORKPLACE: It’s all smiles and can-do affirmations in public, but in private POLITICO’s Rym Momtaz reports there are burnouts and a “siege mentality.”
OPINION — STOP THE FOREIGN LEADER MEDDLING IN AMERICAN POLITICS: “Washington’s partners overseas, especially in the Middle East, have grown far too comfortable taking inappropriate partisan stands in American politics,” write Thanassis Cambanis and Michael Wahid Hanna. That runs from Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu snubbing President Obama via a visit to Congress at the invitation of Republicans, to Saudi investments steered to swing states, and several Middle Eastern governments working to split Republicans and Democrats on Iran policy. “If Biden wins, he’ll arrive in office to find a series of counterparts now accustomed to this personal, partisan style, and will need to brush them back, quickly and decisively,” the pair write in POLITICO Magazine.
UN — LEADERSHIP DIVERSITY DASHBOARD: New York University’s Center on International Cooperation and the Center for Global Affairs has created a dashboard cataloging the diversity of more than 1,300 senior U.N. appointments since 1996. Four out of five peacekeeping roles have been held by men over the last 25 years, according to researchers Foteini Papagioti and Paul von Chamier.
WHICH WORLD LEADERS COULD AFFORD THEIR OFFICIAL RESIDENCES? Some important clickbait to get you through to election day, examining leader net worth and comparing it to their often luxurious properties, from Angela Merkel’s apartment (a tick over a million dollars) to Buckingham Palace (a cool $6.5 billion).
BRAIN FOOD
SCI FI PANEL: Are we living in a simulation? A panel this Friday on sci-fi & politics, moderated by Global Translations’ own Nahal Toosi, features “Dune” screenwriter Jon Spaihts; visionary Walidah Imarisha; and foreign policy professor Dan Nexon. Streamed here. More details.
SHORT READ: No One Fights QAnon Like the Global Army of K-Pop Superfans, by Olivia Carville
BOOK: Billion Dollar Loser: The Epic Rise and Spectacular Fall of Adam Neumann and WeWork, by Reeves Wiedeman.
THANKS to editor Emily Cadei, Luiza Ch. Savage, Cristina Gonzalez, Heidi Vogt, Danielle Muoio, Hanne Cokelaere, Joshua Posaner, Vincent Manancourt, and Halley Toosi.
Source: www.politico.com
