As countries begin rolling out plans to restart their economies after the brutal shock inflicted by the coronavirus pandemic , the three biggest producers of planet-warming gases — the European Union, the United States and China — are writing scripts that push humanity in very different directions.
Europe this week laid out a vision of a green future, with a proposed recovery package worth more than $800 billion that would transition away from fossil fuels and put people to work making old buildings energy-efficient.
In the United States, the White House is steadily slashing environmental protections and Republicans are using the Green New Deal as a political cudgel against their opponents.
China has given a green light to build new coal plants but it also declined to set specific economic growth targets for this year, a move that came as a relief to environmentalists because it reduces the pressure to turn up the country’s industrial machine quickly.