Edition #9: October 7, 2024

Every month, She Writes highlights women contributors whose ideas deserve wider attention, and offers a curated selection of incisive commentaries written by women.

Zongyuan Zoe Liu?is the Maurice R. Greenberg senior fellow for China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. She is the author of?Can BRICS De-dollarize the Global Financial System??(with Mihaela Papa) and?Sovereign Funds: How the Communist Party of China Finances its Global Ambitions.

Liu’s work spans a wide range of areas, from international political economy and East Asia-Middle East relations to critical-mineral supply chains and development finance.

China’s Climate Balancing Act

Liu explains how decarbonization and climate security have been integrated into the government’s broader agenda.

Soumya Swaminathan, a pediatrician and clinical scientist, is Co-Chair of Our Common Air, a global commission of high-level government figures, health experts, academics, and leading climate-change specialists focused on accelerating collective action on air pollution. She is also Principal Adviser for the National Tuberculosis Elimination Program at India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

Swaminathan was chief scientist of the World Health Organization in 2019-22, during the most acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tracking Air Quality the Right Way

Swaminathan and Christa Hasenkopf call for an authoritative global accounting of the world’s single greatest external risk to human health.

PS Say More

Anne-Marie Slaughter on US polarization, the Ukraine war, AI, and more

“Part of the test of a democratic AI will be whether it advances people’s actual needs, such as food, security, and purpose. But, as for any democratic system or institution, part of the test will be which constraints on power are built into it.” – AMS

Read the interview.

More from PS

• In “Put a Price on Shipping Emissions,” Shania Scotland calls on small island countries to back a proposed levy on maritime greenhouse-gas emissions. Read now.
• In “The Climate-Conflict Nexus,” Kyungmee Kim shows how wars and geopolitical tensions are hindering progress on climate-change mitigation and adaptation. Read now.
• In “Egypt’s Skyrocketing C-Sections,” Rana Hendy and Lobna Shaheen urge policymakers to take decisive steps to address the inequalities fueling the rise in cesarean deliveries. Read now.