Kate Mackenzie
100 posts
War on Iran
Will the US’s latest military adventure deal a blow to its fossil-fuel hegemony?
By Kate Mackenzie, Tim Sahay —
Ep 1 | The quiet revolution
How a surge of affordable Chinese clean tech is rewiring global energy.
By Kate Mackenzie, Tim Sahay —
What a time
Facing a Long And Regional War instead of the markets' Short And Contained War scenario.
By Tim Sahay, Kate Mackenzie —
The next energy crunch, maybe
Just over four years ago Russia invaded Ukraine and everything changed. Enemy oil and gas were restricted and energy suddenly became expensive and scarce.
By Tim Sahay, Kate Mackenzie —
Canada's new non-alignment
Some thoughts on Canada’s strategy to do the seemingly impossible task of decoupling from the US. Yes, it’s going to be painful, and building a coalition to endure that pain is part of Mark Carney’s plan, as demonstrated in his Davos speech.
By Tim Sahay, Kate Mackenzie —
It's about oil, no it isn't, yes it is
Re Venezuela: we are looking at the oil angle (and especially the discourse around it) and the trade-offs and assets/liabilities calculus.
By Kate Mackenzie, Tim Sahay —
Good enough?
Notable achievements and terrible features of the COP30 hosted in Brazil. Notably: it took place; and was not a debacle. Terribly: the actual location was inaccessible; China failed to show leadership.
By Kate Mackenzie, Tim Sahay —
Domestic politics and planetary change
Welcome to the Dispatch, which is not coming to you from the 30th UN climate meeting in Belém, but is mostly about Brazil. Brazil is important on the international stage for reasons well beyond COP, and it’s also very close to Tim’s heart right now as he’s
By Kate Mackenzie —
China's 'all of the above'
Hello! We are finally getting answers to some of the questions that have been kicking around for years, like: “How hard might China really weaponize its near-monopoly of rare earths supplies?”. China’s new export measures are about protecting not just its near monopoly on rare earths, but its entire
By Kate Mackenzie —
Many good things to read
Hello dear readers, Tim will be busy in New York this week as it’s UNGA and New York Climate Week. Relat.edly, the last few days have been quite busy in terms of reports — some of which we’ll unpack here. The theme of China exporting clean tech and
By Kate Mackenzie —
China China China
We’re back, after a brief hiatus during which we fell into insurance-climate essay angst (Kate) and report finalization angst (Tim), and new semester teaching (also Tim). You can email us (Kate here; Tim here); follow us on Bluesky (Kate, Tim, Polycrisis account). And do join our discord channel! -Kate
By Kate Mackenzie —
Insurance in the Polycrisis
The future is triage on an uninsurable earth
By Kate Mackenzie, Tim Sahay —
Trump is BRICS' greatest champion
Hello and welcome to the dispatch. This week we scan the latest frontiers of Trump’s trade war, from India to Brazil, amid the US pressure campaign against Russia. We end in Alaska, where Putin is slated to meet Trump on Friday. Is a new world order taking shape before
By Kate Mackenzie —
Taco is Dead. Long Live Empanada
EMPANDA — Everyone Makes Promises And Never Actually Does Anything? The last two weeks have seen a flurry of Trump tariff deals before the August 1st deadline and not unrelatedly to tariff war, market-shaking news of a slowdown of jobs in the US economy. There are many interpretations of who capitulated
By Kate Mackenzie —
Got problems of our own
Hello, we’re back after a short break. Our BRICS essay came out, and its argument that the alliance was increasingly shaped by energy concerns and China’s technological advances were taken up in a Guardian editorial leader. Ben Bradlow’s FT comment yesterday takes up another theme: the tension
By Kate Mackenzie —
Beyond Neoliberalism?
In search of programs, strategies, and coalitions for a new world order
By Kate Mackenzie, Tim Sahay —
Sputnik or steampunk
Welcome to the 49th Dispatch, after a short hiatus (we missed last week). Our BRICS essay came out yesterday, just in time for the bloc’s summit in Brasilia. Most anglosphere media coverage has focused on disunity within the group (which is often the case) and the absence of Xi
By Kate Mackenzie —
BRICS in 2025
Within the BRICS group, two competing global models of energy, growth, and influence. The future of the world’s majority will be decided by the pace of the contest between green technologies and fossil fuels.
By Tim Sahay, Kate Mackenzie —
The new, new chaos
Welcome to the 48th edition of the Dispatch in the timeline in which mad and terrible stuff happens with increasing frequency. It’s a few days since the US bombed Iran and no-one knows anything, once again. But whatever happens, it’s likely that the US’s action will look
By Kate Mackenzie —
Would very much prefer a no bombing version of this
Welcome to another Dispatch in an ever-more dismal week. We were going to write about in this edition something short about the proliferation of reports and takes noting that renewable energy is starting to look more like a first choice of energy for countries — helped by a combination of China’
By Kate Mackenzie —
Post-neoliberalism tag goes here
Last week we were both at the Beyond Neoliberalism conference in Cambridge, UK. There were many excellent panels and speakers, with a lot of focus on industrial and financial policy. Tim spoke on a panel with Helen Thompson, Amir Lebdoui and Bill Janeway; excerpts will be published at the conference
By Kate Mackenzie —
Around and without the US
Welcome to the Dispatch, a weekly low-key email of The Polycrisis. The theme we identified in January for the year(s) to come is how the rest of the world will organize around and without the US, as the great power becomes irrevocably capricious and volatile. Absolute scenes in the
By Kate Mackenzie —
Autarky or resilience or chimera
Welcome to the latest Dispatch, the weekly newsletter that is rapidly decoupling from the Gregorian calendar. This edition looks at yet another acknowledgement of the limits of trying to lure private finance into development; the IMF’s destructive prescriptions in sub-Saharan Africa, and then: how China’s energy system hit
By Kate Mackenzie —
Minerals stockpiles, 'geoeconomics' and debt
Hello readers! This week we look at stockpiling minerals as a security and transition strategy; “geoeconomics” [scare quotes: correct]; and how to evaluate hegemonic power. Plus, the new pope and debt in this Jubilee year. A lot of this edition builds on work and links from our readers and contributors
By Kate Mackenzie —
Exhorbitant privilege, exits, and elections
This week we are looking at the recent elections in Canada and Australia; what Europe has to face up to as the inevitable new hegemon; and India’s transition minerals moves in Latin America. Firstly: a reminder that we’ll both be at the Beyond Neoliberalism conference in Cambridge, UK,
By Kate Mackenzie —
April is the Cruelest Month
Diversification and dedollarization in the world economy
By Kate Mackenzie, Tim Sahay —
Energy security and other co-benefits, quantified
The world may be going to hell in a handbasket but at least there’s a lot of good research and reporting to read. We’ll have more in our Phenomenal World essay in a few days’ time. This week, Tim was on a JFI panel about “Green Industrial Policy
By Kate Mackenzie —
The sorts of things that could happen
Our recurring theme this year is how the rest of the world might work around and without an unreliable US; and this past week has underlined that that unreliability is really now a core feature, not a bug. Welcome to, er, last week’s newsletter this week. These are tricky
By Kate Mackenzie —
Tariffs, around the world
The Trump tariffs were announced, and perhaps the numbers being based on a daft formula reluctantly suggested by four out of four AI chatbots is a welcome distraction from random people being sent to a hellish El Salvadorean prison, or cuts to globally-significant research programs. While Tim is busy advising
By Kate Mackenzie —
Uncertainty
Hello! Our recent preoccupation with LNG has been realised in a new Polycrisis / Phenomenal World essay. This fuel has the allure of versatility and modernity, but the misfortune of its ascent coinciding with that of attractive alternatives. That creates a kind of intrinsic uncertainty that makes it harder for countries,
By Kate Mackenzie —
Molecules of Freedom
The hydra-headed global market for liquified natural gas
By Kate Mackenzie, Tim Sahay —
Global conjuncture; new extractivism
Hello readers! This week we have: Tim’s thoughts on the new New International Economic Order; my attempts at dot-joining on DR Congo, critical minerals and great power rivalry; and the performativity of the hypothetical Mar a Lago Accord. It is our 37th edition. Please forward it, subscribe if it
By Kate Mackenzie —
The before times that led to now
Hello from Sydney and New York. It's the week of spring bacchanal festivals of Purim, Holi, and St Patrick's day. We hope you got some feasting and good craic. This week’s Dispatch is about Germany, LNG “bargaining chips” and South Africa. You can follow us
By Kate Mackenzie —
Innocence is over
“Europe’s future should not be decided in Washington or Moscow… the innocence of these 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall is over.” Yes, we’re quoting Macron, again. Events in the US are bewildering, terrifying and exasperating all at once. We still plan to focus on
By Kate Mackenzie —
Europe Enters Its Metal Era
What kind of Europe survives a fractured transatlantic military alliance?
By Kate Mackenzie, Tim Sahay —
For all the tea in China
Hello, and welcome to our 33rd dispatch. We are struggling with some of the weighty questions hanging over global political economy. We’d love if you would like to take a stab at answering some of these questions. Or send us a reading list. Plus, a few things we read
By Kate Mackenzie —
Europe edition
Hello readers, This is a late and short dispatch; it’s been a very long week in crises. Below are a few thoughts what the US-Europe hostilities in Munich might mean for defense and energy; China’s internationalist pitch at the same conference; and India and Argentina’s US trade
By Kate Mackenzie —
Organizing around and without the US
Hello readers, We skipped last week's newsletter to focus on getting the "Polycrisis 2025" year opener newsletter out on Phenomenal World. It came out around the same time that Trump announced the 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico and 10% on China; “temporary pause” on “all
By Kate Mackenzie —
Polycrisis 2025
Diplomacy, finance, and extraction in the year ahead
By Kate Mackenzie, Tim Sahay, Lara Merling —
Who does what?
Hello, and welcome to the 29th edition of the Dispatch. Tim, Lara and I are working on the first Polycrisis essay for 2025; identifying the themes and issues we’ll be looking at this year. That process inevitably means picking which ones we hope to avoid. The overarching questions for
By Kate Mackenzie —
Capitulation
Hello and welcome to our 28th Dispatch, and the first for 2025. In a few days the world will change and we will be flooded with increasingly dismaying news out of the US. We’ll write more in future about the rest of the world deals with this era. Here,
By Kate Mackenzie —
No one knows nothing...help us?
It’s now five years since Covid began to change the world. What changed and what remained the same in global political economy of climate? That was the question that our friends at Heatmap News posed to us. We have been covering our metastasizing world crisis of development, finance, multilateral,
By Kate Mackenzie —
America First?
Escalation and reverberations in the trade war
By Kate Mackenzie, Lara Merling —
Pluralism, panels and... polycrisis
Welcome to the 26th edition of the Polycrisis Dispatch. It has been a busy couple of weeks in the world, and for us. Tim’s industrial odyssey is continuing (he is now touring steel blast furnaces in India), and last week I attended a conference in Sydney; more on that
By Kate Mackenzie —
Finance, tariffs, and cars
Hello and welcome to the 25th Dispatch. Tim is now in Mexico after visiting Brazil; but this is holiday time, so it’s mostly me (Kate) and a bit of input from Lara this week. COP finance deal, and what surrounds it The climate finance goal agreed at COP29 fell
By Kate Mackenzie —
Dispatch from Brazil G20
Hello and welcome to the 24th edition of the Polycrisis Dispatch. Tim wrote most of this while in Rio during the G20 this week, and is now in Bahia. Our contact details are at the end if you’d like to email or follow us, or join our Discord! Diplomacy
By Kate Mackenzie —
The climate finance COP
Hello and welcome to the 23rd edition of the Dispatch. Tim is heading off to Brazil for the G20 and a holiday, and the excellent Lara Merling is going to be a regular contributor for the next little while. We met Lara via her old gig at Boston University’s
By Kate Mackenzie —
Tensions and contradictions
Welcome to the 22nd edition of Polycrisis Dispatch. Despite acute disappointment and travel, we have a lot to say – much of which we cut here, but will likely make it into the Polycrisis/Phenomenal World newsletter. The election The liberal international order, anchored by stable political majorities in the Western
By Kate Mackenzie —
Seeing like an Asset Manager with Brett Christophers
Last week, we listened to a brilliant conversation between Brett Christophers and Adam Tooze, moderated by Kate Aronoff at the New School in New york. Dissent Magazine has posted the audio on YouTube, and we recommend it enthusiastically. If you’ve ever wanted a Braudel and Marx take on Contracts-For-Difference,
By Kate Mackenzie —
Magic Pony, Groundhog Day
Welcome to our 20th Dispatch. It’s quite a time. The IMF/World Bank annual meetings in DC (Tim was there, where he spoke on a ‘making the world order safe for industrial policy’ panel organized by Common Wealth), and the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia. The US election a
By Kate Mackenzie —
Electrify everywhere: Renewable energy trade edition
Greetings and welcome to our 19th edition. There was no Dispatch last week as we published a big Polycrisis essay-newsletter on the new, green “Marshall Plans” that have been proposed by both US and Chinese policy elites. We asked if these plans will be good for climate and development; and
By Kate Mackenzie —
Power and Powerlessness
Welcome to our 18th edition, coming after a bit of a gap due to travel, illness, and the hecticness of Climate Week/UNGA events. Tim spoke at a few panels, including the Project Syndicate live event on Latin America in the energy transition on Sunday. We also met up with
By Kate Mackenzie —
Europe must rage against the dying of the light
Welcome to edition 17 of our Dispatch. This week we are looking at Draghi’s recommendations to keep the EU competitive and safe; plus the fall in oil prices and what it signals. Next week we are taking a break, catch our newsletter on US-China green Marshall plans. *** Draghi’s
By Kate Mackenzie —
Geometry of Fear: Jake Sullivan meets Xi
Hello and welcome to the 16th edition of our weekly-test-dark-mode email. This week: our takeaways on the China-US back channel talks, revealed to have been under way for almost two years. Plus a couple of excerpts on FOCAC and Marshall Plan tributes. * Please email us with feedback (Tim and Kate)
By Kate Mackenzie —
The Contest to Shape “Country Platforms”
IMF reforms and Bangladesh’s revolt
By Kate Mackenzie, Tim Sahay —
'Sinews of War & Trade' bookclub kicks off soon
In about an hour, in fact. Hello, this is not our 16th edition - we're skipping the Dispatch this week, as we work on a version of our piece on "Country Platforms" into a Polycrisis / Phenomenal World newsletter in the next couple of days. In the
By Kate Mackenzie —
How Deese got there
Welcome to another Polycrisis Dispatch. This is edition #15! This week the Brian Deese — former WH National Economic Council director of Bidenomics — essay in Foreign Affairs calling for a “green US Marshall Plan” has inevitably drawn a lot of attention. We’re planning a bigger analysis in the next Polycrisis
By Kate Mackenzie —
Cyberpunk Summer
Cyberpunk — to riff on on a line by its original proponent William Gibson — is already here; it is just unevenly distributed. Climate change is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed. What might have been a bold statement not long ago is almost trite now. A problem we see
By Kate Mackenzie —
Gen Z and One weird trick
Welcome to edition #13 of the Polycrisis Dispatch, where we’re mostly looking at “country platforms”. Our next Book Club is about Sinews of War and Trade by Laleh Khalili, will be discussed on August 28 at 830am EST We’re very excited that Laleh herself will be joining us
By Kate Mackenzie —
Europe's Metal Era dilemma - Make or Buy?
The Paris Olympics means we are still awaiting who governs the second-biggest EU economy. While France is under caretaker government, we’re reviewing the threats to Europe that occupy domestic and foreign policy circuits. Then we look at the make-versus-buy disagreement, where the defense industry and strategy has common ground
By Kate Mackenzie —
#11 Brazil's G20 agenda; Tornadoes; Summer book club!
Book Club! Hello! This is only a brief brief dispatch for #11 this week before we get back to speed next week. We have a very quick look at the G20 wealth tax. Our Planetary Mine zoom bookclub is coming up this weekend: Monday July 29, 2024 08:30AM Eastern
By Kate Mackenzie —
UK development strategy; Hurricane Beryl; Jamaica
Hello! It is the TENTH edition of our dark-mode weekly email. First, a reminder that our book club for this month is “Planetary Mine” by Martin Aberdola. You can join the Discord server where meetups are being arranged in various cities, and also nominate your preferred times for the zoom
By Kate Mackenzie —
UK election, Carnegie panel, and a lot of things
hello readers! This is extremely short because tomorrow we have our Kenya newsletter on our Phenomenal World mailing list (if you’re not on it for some reason, here you go. As ever, email us jointly here or separately Tim and Kate. A lot has happened since we sent last
By Kate Mackenzie —
The View From Nairobi-Washington
Debt, austerity, and Kenya’s global positioning
By Tim Sahay, Kate Mackenzie —
Kenya and disappointment. Book club update.
Hello and welcome to our NINTH weekly dark-mode/test Polycrisis Dispatch! There are also a bunch of folk on our Discord server (thanks Henry!) and we just had our first Zoom book club session. Next up is Planetary Mine. This week we wrote a lot about Kenya’s tax protests
By Kate Mackenzie —
We look at CBAM, competing global systems, and invent a new acronym
Welcome to the 8th edition of our experiment in weekly Polycrisis dispatching! Please send us any feedback @asahay@gmail.com and/or kate@katemackenzie.net First, some bookclub news: We have locked in the date and time for the zoom conversation: It’s NEXT WEEK: Thursday June 27, 8am EDT,
By Kate Mackenzie —
Europe enters its Metal Era
Welcome to the 7th edition of our weekly test newsletter, the Polycrisis Dispatch! The longer monthly essay newsletter at Phenomenal World is still happening; this is our attempt at something more accessible, more timely, and consequently all-round more haphazard. First, the book club is going strong. Our zoom session will
By Kate Mackenzie —
Elections everywhere & Summer Bookclub
Hello to our new readers, this is the 6th edition of our dark-mode weekly Dispatch. Excitingly, we’ve had over 100 requests to join our Summer Book club so we are resending last weeks dispatch. If you want to join, we have a plan! Jump to the bottom for details
By Kate Mackenzie —
Polycrisis Summer book club?
Welcome to the 5th edition of our dark-mode Polycrisis Dispatch. The unstoppable force of global capitalism meets the immovable object of global warming is the anti-meet cute at the heart of a spate of recent books. According to Vulgar Carbon, all books on the subject can be slotted into five
By Kate Mackenzie —
Costing climate policies
Welcome to the 4th edition of our test-mode Polycrisis Dispatch. This one is going out on a Friday rather than the Thursday we were aiming for. (Last week was big for all of us!) Today, we look at some of the numbers that are calculated about the cost of climate
By Kate Mackenzie —
Tariff chaos; cat-and-mouse supply chains; tech transfer
Welcome to the 3rd edition of our weekly newsletter-in-development. If you want to share feedback, please email us both or Tim and Kate individually. This week’s email came together quite frenetically, as the US tariff hikes are a big story with many elements that are core to our writing
By Kate Mackenzie —
The flood-tax connection; Modi's Billionaire Raj
Hello and welcome to the 2nd test edition of the Polycrisis Dispatch. We’re developing a weekly newsletter that has some of the features of our longer essay newsletters, but is shorter, more accessible, more newsy. If you’ve just been added, it’s because you’re a friend of
By Kate Mackenzie —
Europe's fiscal rules, global net transfers, Spring meetings
Welcome to the first [test] edition of The Polycrisis Dispatch. Our plan is for this to be a weekly email that gives you an insight into what Tim and Kate are reading and thinking about developments in climate, macroeconomics, geopolitics, trade, industry policy and energy. It is sent out at
By Kate Mackenzie —
New World Order?
Lender(s) of last resort, dollar dominance, and the global financial safety net
By Kate Mackenzie, Tim Sahay —
Oil and Politics in the Mid-Transition
A discussion on the geopolitics of a transitioning global energy system.
By Tim Sahay, Kate Mackenzie —
Grievance and Reform
Will the BRICS bargaining chip bear fruit for smaller and lower-income countries?
By Kate Mackenzie, Tim Sahay —
Global Boiling
Stocks and flows, action and inaction in the planetary impasse
By Kate Mackenzie, Tim Sahay —
Washington-Paris-London Calling
Modi, Mottley, Zelenskyy’s attempts to change the existing world order
By Kate Mackenzie, Tim Sahay —
Carbon Budget versus Fiscal Budget
What’s at stake in the fiscal rules debate?
By Kate Mackenzie, Tim Sahay —
Mottley in Paris, Modi in DC
Prospects for the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact
By Kate Mackenzie, Tim Sahay —
Friends With (Metal) Benefits
Australia’s bid for “friendshoring” in the shifting green world order
By Kate Mackenzie, Tim Sahay —
A New Foreign Policy
Understanding the “New Washington Consensus”
By Kate Mackenzie, Tim Sahay —
The End of the Cold Peace
Can the Asian growth miracle survive?
By Kate Mackenzie, Tim Sahay —
The Gigantic Austerity Drive Underway
Two billion people are suffering austerity as governments follow IMF diktat
By Kate Mackenzie, Tim Sahay —
Mercantilist Deals of the Great Powers
Decoupling from China is an uphill task in both the global North and the global South
By Kate Mackenzie, Tim Sahay —
Stranded Countries and Stranded Assets
Outsourcing the energy transition to the Gulf
By Kate Mackenzie, Tim Sahay —
Cash, Cars, Chemicals (and Corn)
Three big decarbonization plots
By Kate Mackenzie, Tim Sahay —
Debt and Power in Pakistan
The subcontinent’s embattled debtor isn’t merely the passive victim of the climate crisis—it is being plundered by its elites
By Tim Sahay, Kate Mackenzie —
The EU and the IRA
Supply and demand in the great powers’ decarbonization race
By Kate Mackenzie, Tim Sahay —
Europe’s “Leap Into the Future”
Do exceptional crisis-fighting policies signal the arrival of an interventionist Europe?
By Tim Sahay, Kate Mackenzie, Lee Harris —
Development Bank Self-Sabotage
What’s stopping MDBs?
By Tim Sahay, Kate Mackenzie, Lee Harris —
Collective Action and Climate Finance
Can the COP move markets?
By Kate Mackenzie, Tim Sahay —
Domestic Politics & Planetary Change
Will a Lula victory be better for the climate than anything that happens at COP27?
By Kate Mackenzie, Tim Sahay —