Yousef Allan/The Royal Hashemite Court/AP/File

Jordan's King Abdullah addresses Parliament in Amman, Jordan, Dec. 10, 2020. On Monday, following allegations of a thwarted coup, the royal court said Abdullah's half brother, former Crown Prince Hamzah, had agreed to reconcile within the royal family.

Jordan has long been the calm oasis at the center of regional storms, never the center of attention.

But its image of stability and calm was punctured Saturday when, under King Abdullah’s directives, the army placed the monarch’s half brother, former Crown Prince Hamzah, under house arrest and detained dozens of his associates across the country for an alleged coup plot.

Alarm quickly spread from here across the region and to Europe and Washington as the moderate oasis that foreign governments had long relied on – and perhaps many had taken for granted – was suddenly rocked with the waves of what was at the very least a royal family feud.

Messages of solidarity, along with expressions of concern and renewed appreciation for Jordan’s outsize geopolitical importance, poured into the kingdom.

In a press conference Sunday, the government named Prince Hamzah; former royal court chief and adviser to the king Bassem Awadalleh; Sharif Hassan bin Zaid, a royal and Abdullah’s former envoy to Saudi Arabia; and associates in an alleged conspiracy to sow “sedition” in the country. It alleged they had the backing of a “foreign party,” saying the security services were able to “nip [the seditious activities] in the bud.”

It refused to disclose which foreign actor was engaged in the conspiracy, citing ongoing investigations.

On Monday the royal court said Abdullah, through his uncle Prince Hassan, had approached his half brother, who in turn agreed to reconcile within the royal family. Hamzah signed a letter pledging allegiance to the king and Hashemite legacy, stating, “I place myself at the disposal of His Majesty the king.”

Strength in stability

Yet concerns among diplomats, allies, and observers remain high.

Royal family feuds are common in other Arab monarchies – most recently Saudi Arabia – but are unheard of in Jordan, where the Hashemite royal family’s steadfastness has allowed the tiny kingdom to become a linchpin of regional stability as its neighbors underwent revolutions and upheavals.

“In 70 years, no Jordanian royalty has been put under arrest. ... This is one major reason people are concerned,” says Jordan-based journalist and analyst Daoud Kuttab.

“The Hashemites offer the perfect balance between all the different competing forces in the region, and they seem to have found a niche that has become Jordan’s strength,” he says. “When this stability of the royal family is shaken, it weakens one of the core pillars of Jordan’s existence, and it threatens regional stability.”

America and the West have relied on Jordan for the Middle East peace process, and leaned heavily on the kingdom to help lead the fight against jihadi extremism, from Al Qaeda to Islamic State.

Jordan is both a mediator and advocate for the Palestinians, and it coordinates security with Israel. Its safe space is a meeting place for rival factions from across the region; its tolerant and liberal-leaning promotion of interfaith harmony has made the kingdom a refuge for minorities and displaced people.

Raad Adayleh/AP/File

Jordanian police surround protesters to prevent them from reaching Cabinet headquarters in Amman, Jordan, Nov. 30, 2018. The protesters had called on the Jordanian prime minister to resign over his tax policies and alleged failure to improve the country's economy.

Also important is the kingdom’s strategic location linking the Levant and the Persian Gulf.

“Jordan stands on the front line of major crises in the region and in between many regional players: Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Israel,” says Oraib al-Rantawi, director of the Amman-based Al-Quds Centre for Political Studies.

“We saw regional and international powers immediately offer their support and solidarity with the leadership during this incident because they all know that any instability in Jordan will have a spillover effect in the region,” he says.

“This crisis is one of the few occasions when we actually feel this small country’s very unique geopolitical position and importance.”

Tough times

The royal family feud and coup plot allegations come at a difficult time for the kingdom.

Jordan is mired in an economic crisis that predates the pandemic. This year, the pandemic pushed the official unemployment rate to 24.7%; experts say in reality it could be as high as 40%. Government funds and vaccines are scarce.

Jordan imposed a costly lockdown last year, but the health sector is now overwhelmed with one of the highest infection rates and death rates per capita in the world.

Frustrations came to a head last month when an oxygen shortage due to mismanagement at a government hospital was blamed for the deaths of nine COVID-19 patients.

Regional wars and tumult on its borders have flooded the country with refugees, spiked inflation, and hobbled the kingdom’s economy.

Some observers say it is these conditions at home – economic crisis, distrust, rising public anger toward the state – and not foreign intrigue that prompted the state to detain Hamzah and stop his ongoing meetings with disgruntled citizens and influential tribal figures.

Who is Hamzah?

The former crown prince is the son of the late King Hussein and his fourth wife, Queen Noor.

As part of a royal family compromise to settle a succession dilemma in 1999, Hamzah was named crown prince and Abdullah, Hussein’s eldest son, was tapped as monarch. In 2004, King Abdullah replaced Hamzah with his own son, Hussein, as crown prince. 

Hamzah, with a physical likeness to his father, has since grown into a romanticized figure by tribal Jordanians pining for the “golden years” of Hussein’s patriarchal reign, when the state was the main provider and employer, life was affordable, and inequality minimal.

Yousef Allan/AP/File

Jordan’s King Abdullah laughs with his half brother Prince Hamzah (right), shortly before the monarch embarked on a 2001 tour of the United States. Prince Hamzah said in a recording released April 5, 2021, that he would defy government orders to stay at home and refrain from public statements. But he later signed a letter pledging allegiance to the king.

Hamzah’s supporters, like many Jordanians, have chafed under the neoliberal reforms and austerity measures of Abdullah’s reign, which have grown the private sector but led to wider income gaps and a tax regime favoring the wealthy.

For most of the past decade, Hamzah has echoed the public’s grievances, lobbing thinly veiled rebukes of Abdullah and his inner circle. In doing so, he has boosted his own popularity and crafted the persona of a royal who is connected to the common man and woman.

“I am not the person responsible for the breakdown in governance, the corruption, and for the incompetence that has been prevalent in our governing structure for the last 15 to 20 years and has been getting worse,” Hamzah said in a smuggled video message on the day of his detention, denying coup allegations. 

“There is a vacuum created by the government’s failures to enact socioeconomic reform. Prince Hamzah has jumped in and capitalized on this issue successfully and that is the government’s fault, not his,” Mr. Rantawi says.

Foreign plot?

If a foreign country was behind a nascent coup attempt, as the government insinuates, Jordanians and observers have been left in speculation. Jordan, with its “friends with all” foreign policy, has few enemies or natural rivals.

Just who, exactly, would wish to destabilize Jordan?

For those supporting the government’s narrative, the suspect is a regional country that desires a change in leadership within the Hashemite royal family.

Many first pointed to Saudi Arabia, due to Riyadh’s alleged attempts to inspire a coup in its rival Qatar and the strong Saudi connections of several of those arrested.

Yet Saudi Arabia was the first to express support for Abdullah, within less than two hours of the plot becoming public. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman followed up with rare phone calls to both Abdullah and Crown Prince Hussein to voice his personal support.

It also remains unclear why a Sunni Gulf monarchy would wish trouble in a fellow, neighboring monarchy and a longtime ally.

One theory blames the United Arab Emirates, which has had an at-times fraught relationship with Abdullah over his refusal to support the Trump peace plan. Abdullah frustrated the UAE’s normalization with Israel by blocking Jordanian airspace to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as part of an ongoing spat between Mr. Netanyahu and the king. 

Others, still, circle back to Israel and Mr. Netanyahu. Official “leaks” to Jordanian news outlets claimed that an Israeli businessman who officials alleged is a Mossad agent contacted Hamzah’s wife to arrange a private jet to fly them out of Jordan on the day of his house arrest. (The Israeli later denied being a Mossad agent, saying he was a friend of the prince’s.)

Israel, a peace partner of Jordan, is currently embroiled in post-election coalition-building. Mr. Netanyahu is trying to claw his way to a sixth term while fighting off corruption charges.  

All of which leaves many Jordanians and their allies grappling with one uncomfortable truth: the unshakable, stable monarchy is not as secure as once believed.

Urged on by an increasingly influential progressive movement and emboldened by Republicans’ waning commitment to fiscal discipline, President Joe Biden is redefining “infrastructure” as an investment in not only the physical and technological underpinnings of American society, but also the people that keep it humming. 

Roads and bridges account for only $115 billion in President Biden’s $2.65 trillion infrastructure plan – less than 5% of the overall price tag. The plan would spend roughly twice as much on affordable housing; three times as much on manufacturing, including investments in clean energy and domestic job creation; and four times as much to boost pay and benefits for caregivers of older adults and people with disabilities, including the option to join a union. A key component of the plan is addressing racial injustice and investing in disadvantaged communities, while promoting clean energy technologies to address climate change and improve quality of life.

The sweeping proposal, dubbed the American Jobs Plan, comes on the heels of a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill that included several expansions of government benefits that are expected to become permanent. To some, it’s surprising: How did Joe Biden, the presumed moderate in a 2020 Democratic field that included Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, come to preside over one of the most significant pushes for bigger government since Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society or even Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal? 

Part of the shift happened during the Democratic primary, in which the enthusiastic reception of Ms. Warren and Mr. Sanders demonstrated to Mr. Biden and the Democratic Party the degree to which progressive ideals were resonating, particularly among younger voters.

“He understands that the future of the Democratic Party is not him,” says Matthew Dickinson, a professor of political science at Middlebury College in Vermont. “He understands he has to legislate with one eye toward what the future of that party is going to be.”

To be sure, Professor Dickinson notes, such bold action risks sparking a backlash in the 2022 midterm elections, just as President Barack Obama experienced with the tea party wave of 2010. 

But in just a decade since the tea party swept to power on promises of reining in government spending and reducing the national debt, the GOP’s commitment to fiscal discipline has lessened considerably. That makes it harder for the party to credibly push back on Mr. Biden’s policies for purely fiscal reasons. 

Add to that the pandemic and subsequent government restrictions that provided an opening for dramatically expanding federal intervention, with GOP lawmakers joining their Democratic colleagues in passing $3 trillion in pandemic relief bills.

Now, Mr. Biden and his progressive allies are wagering that a majority of voters will ultimately support his massive spending proposals. And in their eyes, that’s the kind of bipartisanship that matters, even if not a single Republican lawmaker votes in favor of the ambitious plan and the corporate tax increase the White House has proposed to fund it. 

Nam Y. Huh/AP

President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure plan would call for building a national network of 500,000 electric vehicle chargers, like this one in Northbrook, Illinois, by 2030, and replacing 50,000 diesel public transit vehicles.

Polls show that the COVID-19 relief bill, which initially drew bipartisan public support, has grown steadily less popular among Republican voters in recent weeks. GOP lawmakers and conservative media have hammered the bill for veering too far from immediate, direct pandemic relief, saying it lays the groundwork for the biggest expansion of welfare benefits in decades.

Initial polling about Mr. Biden’s infrastructure package shows bipartisan support for key elements of it, but according to one poll from Ipsos, nearly a third of voters in both parties say they aren’t familiar with the plan itself and substantially fewer Republicans than Democrats say they support it. Time will tell whether people will feel enough of a tangible benefit from such sweeping proposals to give them the support to ride out any political backlash in the near term. But progressives are encouraged by what they see so far. 

“Republicans are helping Democrats build muscle memory for what it feels like to go it alone and then be politically rewarded for it,” says Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which has advanced the concept of “main street bipartisanship” and is pleased with the progressive agenda emerging from the Biden White House. “I think we’re ahead of where we expected to be.”

Progressives and GOP both played a role

Many credit Mr. Sanders and Ms. Warren, who have both been vocal advocates for the working class, with bringing a new constellation of issues to the forefront of the 2020 campaign. That, in turn, put pressure on Mr. Biden – often described as a relative centrist – to shift his positions. 

“Biden was one of the few candidates who actually moved further left in the general election than he started out,” says Rep. Ro Khanna of California, who served as a co-chair of Mr. Sanders’ 2020 campaign and is now a deputy whip of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. “I think that was a direct response to the campaign Senator Sanders had run and the success we had had.”

But former President Donald Trump also helped, he argues. 

“Trump blew up the neoliberal consensus,” says Representative Khanna, who argues that the president focused too much on racial grievance while progressives by contrast presented a more positive vision for advancing the common good. Still, he helped their cause. “But the reality is that he did – by pointing out the plight of the working class and deindustrialization – shatter the neoliberal myth of excessive faith in deregulation of markets and in absolute reliance on privatization.”

Elise Amendola/AP/File

Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Joe Biden, and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont participate during a Democratic presidential primary debate at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, Feb. 7, 2020.

The cracks in the GOP’s commitment to fiscal discipline started years before Mr. Trump entered the White House. The George W. Bush administration’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq plunged the U.S. into years of deficit spending, with Vice President Dick Cheney declaring “deficits don’t matter.”

But Mr. Trump, who declared himself “the king of debt” during his 2016 campaign, took things further.

In 2017, his administration and a GOP-controlled Congress passed tax cuts that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated would add $1.9 trillion to the federal deficit over a decade. In 2018, Republicans approved a budget that significantly exceeded bipartisan caps on discretionary spending – something the Obama administration had not done. Then the pandemic hit, and a GOP-controlled White House and Senate approved $3 trillion in deficit spending. With all these annual deficits piling up, last year the U.S. debt reached its highest level relative to annual gross domestic product since 1947. 

All this has emboldened Democrats to brush off GOP arguments about fiscal discipline by pointing out “the [emperor] wears no clothes,” says William Hoagland, a senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington and a board member of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

“It clearly has given them the justification for saying, ‘Wait a minute, you have not been concerned about fiscal debt and deficits,’” says Mr. Hoagland, a longtime Senate staffer who served as director of budget and appropriations for GOP Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist from 2003 to 2007. “I think that Republicans have in some ways made it possible for Biden and the Democrats to pursue these rather expansionary proposals.” 

The pandemic’s effect

Part of the calculus is a shifting landscape of partisan loyalties. Mr. Trump was praised for his political instincts in wooing working-class Americans, who felt left behind by globalist policies that saw manufacturing outsourced to other countries. Part of the shift away from fiscal discipline has been driven by a populist surge within the party to court more such voters, including with stimulus payments. 

In just one recent example, the head of the Republican Study Committee, Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana, wrote a memo to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy arguing that the GOP’s success in 2022 midterms will hinge on its ability to reorient itself as the party of the working class.

Arguably none of these expensive, expansive government initiatives would have happened without the pandemic. Although some GOP governors and lawmakers argued for less strict measures, there was a certain degree of bipartisan support for massive funding as millions were unable to work due to government shutdowns. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, a possible 2024 GOP presidential contender, joined Mr. Trump in arguing for more generous stimulus payments.

“I think there is a shift in the country that the coronavirus has highlighted in bold face,” says Professor Dickinson, who sees a greater public acceptance of the idea that government is the solution to problems – contrary to the Reagan mantra long touted by the GOP that “government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.”

Before the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the globe, Samhita Mukhopadhyay was considering having a baby on her own. The 42-year-old New Yorker spent the early months of 2020 educating herself about fertility treatments. 

But once lockdowns hit and it became more difficult to make doctors’ appointments, Ms. Mukhopadhyay, who was already ambivalent about having children, shelved the idea. Now, after seeing her friends who are single mothers struggle to balance work and parenthood during the pandemic, she’s more convinced that remaining childless is the right choice.  

“I am looking at the world right now and it still doesn’t feel totally safe yet,” she says. “I take care of my mother; the thought of doing that and my job and raising a child would be really overwhelming.” 

Ms. Mukhopadhyay joins a growing global trend of women putting aside plans to have a child – temporarily or indefinitely – as the pandemic enters its second year. Despite initial projections of a baby boom as countries went into lockdown and couples were shuttered at home, more women are deciding not to have children due to age and fertility challenges, financial concerns, or pessimism about the future. 

But even as initial research shows an overall drop in births, many women around the world are still choosing to have children. For some, the lockdowns and forced togetherness with their partners have created the ideal moment to start or grow their family. Others see having a child as something positive to bring into a world steeped in uncertainty.

Across the board, the pandemic has highlighted the unique challenges women and their partners face when deciding to conceive. It is also forcing them to reassess their priorities and values when it comes to family, and decide what they are willing to sacrifice – or not – to uphold them.

Joel Flynn/Reuters

A woman holds a baby in a room at the Penny's Bay quarantine center on Hong Kong's Lantau Island, March 15, 2021.

“With the pandemic, we’re seeing an economic crisis that’s creating a wave of unemployment,” says Diego Ramiro, director of the Institute of Economics, Geography and Demography at the Spanish National Research Council in Madrid. “Living in the same household, seeing very stressful situations on the news as well as the uncertainty of your job … even if you love your partner very much, that brings so much stress to the household and can delay your decision to start a family.”

“Having a child is the last thing on the list”

There were early predictions during the first few months of lockdowns last spring of an upcoming baby boom, as couples sat at home with nowhere to go. But the challenges of being locked in quickly became apparent.

With schools closed in many parts of the world, couples with children had to balance work with home-schooling duties – with more responsibilities on women than men. As the pandemic forced businesses to close, workers were laid off or put on furlough. Weddings were put on hold, pushing back family planning, and single people faced new challenges in meeting a partner. Last April, the United Nations called for urgent action to combat the surge in domestic violence worldwide as a result of lockdowns. 

The number of registered births in 2020 has fallen sharply across Europe, Asia, and North America, according to early studies. Italy registered 21.6% fewer births in December 2020 than a year prior, and Spain saw a 20.4% drop. China marked 15% fewer registered births in 2020, according to data released in February, exacerbating an existing decline. 

Canada reported its lowest population growth in over a century, and for the first time South Korea registered more deaths than births. Researchers predict the global downward trend will continue as the pandemic rages on, which could have lasting economic consequences.

A June 2020 survey of U.S. women by the Guttmacher Institute showed that 34% wanted to get pregnant later or have fewer children because of the pandemic. 

“The lockdowns had a huge impact on couples: from the economy and job losses, to being stuck at home, working from home with other children at home, [and] fertility treatments were often limited,” says Laurent Toulemon, a senior researcher at the French National Institute for Demographic Studies, who says France saw a 13% drop in births in January, year-on-year. “In that situation, when couples have to sort through what needs to happen first, having a child is the last thing on the list.”

For those still optimistic about having children, many couples faced challenges outside their control. Anne and Tessa, a married couple in Norwich, England, had planned to start fertility treatments last April when the pandemic forced the country into lockdown and their fertility clinic closed. When it opened back up in the fall, the couple was able to freeze several eggs. But then the second wave hit England.

“We didn’t know if we wanted to get pregnant if the hospitals were being slammed with COVID cases. There was definitely concern about having to be in the hospital during that time,” says Anne, who plans on carrying the couple’s baby. “I’m hoping that after I get vaccinated in May or June, I can finally get pregnant.”

Hannah Beier/Reuters

Dr. Mayank Amin and his wife, Payal Amin, shop for baby items in Bridgewater, New Jersey, Feb. 28, 2021.

Preexisting trends

If the decline in global birth rates has been a surprise to some, demographers and sociologists have been predicting the latest findings for months. “Anytime there’s some type of economic shock, we usually see a drop in births about 9, 10, 11 months later,” says Alison Gemmill, a demographer and assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University, who has collected initial data on declines in birth rate in the U.S. over the past year. “That drop in births can persist for some time, like we saw with the Great Recession or Great Depression.”

A drop in the birth rate for one year wouldn’t necessarily be cause for concern, says Phillip Levine, an economics professor at Wellesley College. But the drop is magnifying a downward trend.

“This is compounding an already ongoing decline of a pretty significant magnitude [in the U.S.],” says Dr. Levine. “You’re starting to approach a pretty large and ongoing decline in births that could have impacts on the economy and society for years and decades.”

Globally, birth rates have followed the same trend, falling steadily since 1950, when the total fertility rate was 4.7 live births per woman compared to 2.4 in 2017, according to a 2019 study in The Lancet. Birth rates in industrialized countries have already dropped below the replacement levels of 2.1, which would mean fewer young people to support aging populations in future generations.

Countries already battling low birth rates, like Singapore, Japan, and South Korea, are especially at risk of feeling the consequences of that decline. More than 35% of the population in Japan, which has the most aged society on the globe, is expected to be over 65 by 2050, which risks stretching government finances thin and hindering economic growth.

In China, decades of a one-child policy, together with urbanization and rising prosperity, have all contributed to the slowdown in births, and Chinese experts predict the population could begin falling later this decade. China started allowing all couples to have two children in 2016, but that has done little to mitigate the trends, especially as women become more highly educated, independent and career-driven. 

“There is a longer-term trend that Chinese people are delaying their marriage and – in the younger generation – even forgoing marriage altogether,” says Dr. Yong Cai, a professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “COVID is sort of a little more background noise. If we see a major decline in terms of fertility, it’s because of all the other things going on, especially ... women’s social status.”

Opportunity to focus on family? 

Despite the challenges of having a baby during a pandemic – navigating numerous doctors’ visits, giving birth wearing a mask or without their partner present – many women say COVID-19 has not changed their plans to have a child. If anything, it has made their notion of family even stronger. 

For Alexandra Chapman, a self-employed graphic designer in Washington state who has a daughter and stepson, the pandemic created space for growing her family. “[The pandemic] slowed everything down to a stop,” says Ms. Chapman, who gave birth to a boy in February. “It put us all in our homes and I thought, what a perfect time to have a baby, actually.”

Li, a primary school teacher in China’s southwestern city of Chengdu, welcomed her first child, a daughter, on March 26. “I want to have an ‘ox’ baby,” she said via email before giving birth, referring to the Lunar New Year animal known for its strength. A stable marriage and job, coupled with China’s fast containment of COVID-19, encouraged her to start a family, despite some anxiety about medical care. “There were times I was upset and afraid of being infected. ... But I feel that I’m the right age and I should have a little baby.”

Still, the concept of family has never meant the same thing to everyone, and that’s especially true during the pandemic. Anaïs, who is 36 and lives in Poitiers, France, has had to reimagine her vision of family. She and her partner, who is 39, have dealt with long-term effects of COVID-19, which have affected their ability to work full time. Due to health and financial concerns, they’ve decided to postpone – most likely indefinitely – having kids.

“I don’t know if I should grieve yet or not, but it seems impossible to project that far in the future,” says Anaïs. “COVID has changed my concept of what family means, especially as a woman, even if I consider myself a feminist and don’t want to be defined by having children. I still want something to take care of. We’re thinking about getting a cat instead.”

Michel Euler/AP

John Kerry, the U.S. special presidential envoy for climate, gestures as he speaks to the media after a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée Palace in Paris, March 10, 2021. Mr. Kerry traveled to Paris to relaunch transatlantic cooperation with European officials in the wake of President Joe Biden's decision to rejoin the global effort to curb climate change.

While managing the pandemic has been the key priority for many governments in the past year, 2020 was also a year that saw the costliest weather and climate disasters across the United States in history. It was also one of the hottest years on record. 

“We can no longer delay or do the bare minimum to address climate change,” said President Joe Biden on Feb. 19, in a not-so-veiled criticism of predecessor Donald Trump.

President Biden’s remarks came as the U.S. officially rejoined the Paris Agreement, which the prior administration had pulled out of. He said, “This is a global existential crisis, and all of us will suffer if we fail.”

As the Biden administration pledges urgent action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, how is the U.S. actually faring? The nation isn’t at the standstill that many might expect. Even during the past four years, state and local governments along with businesses and individuals have been taking actions and making investments on everything from renewable energy to electric vehicles and more-efficient buildings.

One indicator: U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide in the electric power sector declined by 17% from 2016 to 2019. 

Yet there is still a long way to go to hit the Paris Agreement objective of a largely decarbonized economy by 2050. 

The big question is whether President Biden can speed up the clean energy transition with his infrastructure plan, which promises to address climate concerns, says Steven J. Davis, an Earth system scientist at the University of California, Irvine.

“That’s really where it’s going to determine what direction we go,” says Dr. Davis. “And it stands to reason that it could really influence the carbon intensity of our economy for a generation. We can either use that wisely to get us on track with some of the renewables and electric vehicles, or we can squander the opportunity and more or less stay where we are, and have the long slog ahead of us.” 

SOURCE:

Global Carbon Atlas

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Jacob Turcotte/Staff

As countries around the world think about economic recovery plans to emerge from the pandemic, two opposite things are happening, says Pierre Noël, a global research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy. In more developed countries, some governments are taking the opportunity to invest in building greener infrastructure. For example, Mr. Biden’s infrastructure plan is likely to accelerate the deployment of electric vehicle charging stations. 

“But on the other hand, in many countries, especially in the developing world, you have this extreme sense of urgency to bring the economy back on track, and the environment takes a backseat,” says Dr. Noël.  

SOURCE:

U.S. Energy Information Administration

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Jacob Turcotte/Staff

At the same time, energy markets are being transformed, amid changes that are most visible in advanced nations like the U.S., with its three-year decline of 17% in CO2 emissions prior to the coronavirus pandemic.

Falling costs for solar and wind power have spurred the rise of non-carbon and renewable sources, which constituted a record high of 38% of electricity generation in 2019.

In parallel, costs for natural gas, as a cleaner alternative to coal, have also declined in a trend that predates the Trump administration.

“The economics is still very much favorable to gas [in the United States], and the collapse in the cost of renewables is continuing unabated,” says Dr. Noël.

SOURCE:

Our World in Data based on Global Carbon Project, BP, Maddison, UNWPP; U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis

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Jacob Turcotte/Staff

Globally, estimated emissions saw a record drop in 2020 as people were forced to stay indoors and travel was restricted. But experts expect this to be temporary and that emissions will rise again as the economy recovers.

For both advanced and developing nations, the challenge is how to maintain economic progress while increasingly leaving fossil fuels behind. 

Market forces alone will not be enough, experts say, to spur the more meaningful changes that are urgently needed to achieve zero-emission goals by 2050. 

“The part of the energy economy where green is becoming cheap is actually restricted to [electric] power, and even in the power sector, it is not universal,” says Dr. Noël. “Things are changing primarily because of market forces … but this will only take you so far, and much more is needed.”

Yousef Allan/The Royal Hashemite Court via AP, File

Jordan's King Abdullah II gives a speech to parliament in December.

Long a constitutional monarchy – more monarchy than constitutional – Jordan has been an island of convenient stability in the Middle East. That image was shattered over the weekend when the government of King Abdullah accused his half brother, former Crown Prince Hamzah, of “destabilizing Jordan’s security.” Prince Hamzah claims he is under house arrest. With suggestions of an attempted coup, the palace intrigue continues like a segment of “The Crown” or “Game of Thrones” or even an Oprah Winfrey interview of disaffected British royals. 

But the real spotlight should be on Jordanians. Their growing embrace of political equality has laid a broader groundwork for a challenge to hereditary rule in one of the Arab world’s many monarchies or emirates.

Jordan’s king, who can easily disband Parliament, has become more authoritarian as citizens increasingly demand basic rights and liberties. Last year, voter turnout was near a historic low for seats in a parliament described as merely decor. Hundreds of teachers were arrested for demanding better benefits. As more Jordanians connect by internet, they discover shared concerns. And as the historical demise of monarchies shows, they feel less like subjects and more like individuals capable of self-governance.

Prince Hamzah says he was not part of any conspiracy against the king. Rather, he said, “Even to criticize a small aspect of a policy leads to arrest and abuse by the security services.” That assessment of Jordan’s political climate is backed up by two global watchdogs, Freedom House and The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index.

Monarchs, which claim authority by a belief that bloodlines bestow legitimacy, often feel threatened by their extended family. Issues over succession are often a source of instability. Jordan’s palace turmoil is a case in point. Yet these days such challenges to dynasties more often come from an awakening of people about the key concept of sovereignty – that each individual is worthy and democracies are best able to recognize that.

The era of personalization of power is giving way to one of power by persons who see each other as equals and demand institutions that are accountable to all. That recognition of shared equality is thicker than bloodlines.