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from MacroScope:

Will China make the world green?

Joschka Fischer was never one to mince words when he was Germany's foreign minister in the late '90s and early noughts. So it is not overly surprising that he has painted a picture in a new post of a world with only two powers -- the United States and China -- and an ineffective and divided Europe on the sidelines.

More controversial, however, is his view that China will not only grow into the world's most important market over the coming years, but will determine what the world produces and consumes -- and that that will be green.

Fischer, who was leader of  Germany's Green Party, reckons that due to its sheer size and needed GDP growth, China will have to pursue a green economy. Without that, he writes in his Project Syndicate post, China will quickly reach limits to growth with disastrous ecological and, as a result, political consequences.

This will have serious consequences on the the way the West lives.

Consider the transition from the traditional automobile to electric transport. Despite European illusions to the contrary, this will be decided in China, not in the West. All that will be decided by the West’s globally dominant automobile industry is whether it will adapt and have a chance to survive or go the way of other old Western industries: to the developing world.

This is not the usual view of China. Many greens have long feared the impact of a huge leap in Chinese growth on the global environment -- refrigerators in a billion homes, cars in a billion garages etc.

Should Barack Obama be in Berlin to mark the fall of the Berlin Wall?

There is one world leader who is not coming to Berlin to mark the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall’s fall -U.S. President Barack Obama. Much to the chagrin of the German government that spent months trying to get him, Obama won’t be here. It’s turned into a bit of a political controversy in the United States.

But it’s also intriguing to Germans and German media. Why isn’t Obama here? Berlin loves (most) American presidents — going back to John F. Kennedy’s “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech. Is there more than meets the eye to Obama’s decision not to come?

Obama, of course, wanted to speak at the Brandenburg Gate in July 2008, when he was only the Democratic candidate. Merkel intervened to prevent that from happening — he ended up giving the speech a few km away at the Victory Column. Tomorrow, Obama could have spoken at the Brandenburg Gate.

Obama did come back to Berlin after that speech in front of 200,000 spectators as presidential candidate (www.reuters.com) last year — but only as a wax figure at Madame Tussauds (photo) The life-like creation was included at Madame Tussauds in Berlin, just a few blocks east of the Brandenburg Gate, in January.

So what do you think? Should Obama have come to Berlin?

Take part in our poll and look for results and more information on our Berlin Wall live blog: http://blogs.reuters.com/global/2009/11/04/the-berlin-wall-20/ poll by twiigs.com

Can a new president repair relations with Europe?

Presidential candidate Barack Obama spoke at the “Victory Column” in Berlin’s Tiergarten park in front of thousands of Germans and tourists in his only formal address during his week-long foreign tour. He called on Europe to stand by the United States in bringing stability to Afghanistan and confronting other threats from climate change to nuclear proliferation.

Relations between the United States and Germany reached a post-war low under former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who strongly opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq. He said Germany would “not click its heels” and follow President Bush into war — a position that tapped into wells of German pacifism but infuriated Bush. But Chancellor Angela Merkel, who grew up behind the Wall in the communist East, has worked hard to repair ties with the U.S. and has emerged as one of Bush’s closest allies in Europe.

Obama and Merkel met for the first time on Thursday and touched on Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Middle East peace, climate change and the global economy during their talk.

A Pew Research Center poll showed Germans favor Obama over John McCain by a 49 point margin. But some German officials have said Obama risks disappointing Europeans because their expectations are so high.

Can a new president repair relations with Europe?

For the full article on Barack Obama’s speech in Berlin, click here.