David Fickling

David Fickling is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering climate change and energy. Previously, he worked for Bloomberg News, the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times. Viktor Orbán is learning how to bring affordable EVs to the European Union. Democracies can meet the challenge, too. Stellantis is walking a regulatory tightrope to fulfill its ambitions in the world's biggest car market. US hegemony may be hard to maintain. It will be all but impossible if it retreats into an isolationist shell. Tokyo stands alone in the G7. Far from shutting down polluting fuel plants, it's opening them. Elon Musk's decision to tie up with search giant Baidu makes sense. It's an admission that he needs to pool expertise with rivals in order to keep pace. We don't know how much damage these polymers do to our health. But we can make significant inroads on litter and emissions to tackle this issue head-on. Sweltering heat is keeping some voters away. Changing the system is a risk worth taking. It may be challenging to assail China's lead in some technologies, but the field is wide open for those yet to get established. The West must spend more money on clean technology to rewire the world's energy systems. European players have taken a different tone with Beijing than their more hawkish US counterparts. Now is not the time to pick a fight. Higher rates have held back green power. As central bankers take their foot off the brake, investment momentum will be unstoppable. The Treasury secretary's plan is a protectionist disaster that will impede the path to net zero. No amount of protectionism can bring this sector back to its heyday. Now the argument is being used to push for more damaging barriers on clean technology. Petroleum consumption in the world's biggest emitter these days isn't so much about vehicles as the shirt on your back. Tech professionals are fleeing a drought in the IT hub of Bengaluru. Fixing the issue means confronting the country's two most sensitive industries: agriculture and power generation. By midyear, half of all cars sold in the country will come with a plug. BYD is leading the charge. The country's clean-tech growth is a success story on a grand scale. Cairo's lack of vision on renewables hurts the climate and provides no escape for a population ground down by repeated cycles of economic turmoil. It's not just bondholders impacted. China's construction sector accounts for nearly 7% of the world's carbon emissions, and its hunger for material affects renewables, too. To confront the global challenge of a warming planet, the world needs to work in unison. Trade wars will only slow the path to net zero.