: Climate First. The New Debate on Protectionism in Davos #WorldNEWS In 2023, TIME will once again recognize 100 businesses making an extraordinary impact around the world. Applications for the TIME100

Climate First. The New Debate on Protectionism in Davos #WorldNEWS
In 2023, TIME will once again recognize 100 businesses making an extraordinary impact around the world. Applications for the TIME100 Most Influential Companies of 2023 are open, now through March 1, 2023. Apply here.
While many of the delegates at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting this year used the event as an opportunity to encourage cooperation, driving home the theme of “Cooperation in a Fragmented World,” the issue of protectionism forced some difficult conversations in Davos, as the world’s biggest economies grapple with the question of how to address the climate and energy crises.

On the final day of the summit on Friday, during a panel on the economic outlook for the year ahead, International Monetary Fund chief Kristalina Georgieva urged delegates to “keep the global economy integrated for the benefit of all of us. ” But while the spirit of working together was woven through the entire Alpine event this year, there was one major sticking point.
Tense conversations have been taking place over the past week about the U. S. Inflation Reduction Act. The climate, tax, and health bill has been viewed by some in Europe as a protectionist policy that threatens some European industries, due to incentives included in the plan, such as tax credits for American-built electric cars.
Earlier in the week, speaking on a panel, Sen. Joe Manchin defended the bill and sought to reassure European allies. Theres been a lot of consternation and concerns about the IRA—the Inflation Reduction Act—thinking that its going to harm the E. U. There is no intent whatsoever to harm any of our allies,” he said, adding an assurance that “were always going to be there. ”
Manchin couched progress on clean energy as a win-win for the U. S. and its partners across the pond. “If you really want a clean environment, a cleaner environment, and some calming of geopolitical unrest that we have, you better be able to do it quicker, faster, and better than any place in the world, and then share it with your friends,” he said. “Thats what were going to do.
During Friday’s economic outlook panel, former U. S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers drew a distinction between a trade war and a subsidy war, saying the latter was a “good thing” in the case of green subsidies.
“If we are all competing over who can accelerate a transition towards renewables more rapidly, who can be the biggest leader in storage and transmission technologies, that is a very healthy kind of competition, relative to all the kinds of competition the world has seen,” he said. “So yes, lets compete on that.