Energy 360°

This week, Dr. Sarah Burch (University of Waterloo, Canada) talks with Joseph Majkut (CSIS Energy Security and Climate Change Program Director) about key findings from the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change, which provided an updated assessment of global climate change mitigation progress and pledges.   Dr. Sarah Burch holds a Canada Research Chair in Sustainability Governance and Innovation and is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Management, University of Waterloo, Canada. She is an expert in transformative responses to climate change at the community scale, innovative strategies for making progress on sustainability, and the unique contributions that small businesses can make to this solving this complex challenge. She is currently a Lead Author of the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.    Listen to our previous episodes: Making Sense of the I

This week, Kevin Book (ClearView Energy Partners and CSIS) joins Joseph Majkut (CSIS) to discuss how energy issues are at play in the upcoming U.S. midterm elections and what it may mean for the future of the U.S. energy and climate agenda.

In this special episode, Joseph Majkut (CSIS) talks with Kyle Danish (Van Ness Feldman) and John Larsen (Rhodium Group) about the future of U.S. climate policy following the news that Senator Joe Manchin rejected the proposed energy and climate investments that were part of the budget reconciliation package and the recent Supreme Court decision limiting the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate carbon emissions at existing power plants. Further Reading The Climate Change Agenda can Survive the Supreme Court’s EPA ruling U.S. Supreme Court Constrains EPA’s Climate Authorities Taking Stock 2022: US Greenhouse Gas Emissions Outlook in an Uncertain World

This week, Raad Alkadiri, Managing Director for Energy, Climate & Resources at the Eurasia Group and an CSIS affiliate and Ben Cahill, CSIS Energy Security and Climate Change Program talk about President’s upcoming trip to the Middle East.  Ben and Raad talk about why the President is going now and expectations for the trip’s success. They look at the energy issues likely to be addressed, especially as global oil prices are easing off their recent highs, and the role that Saudi Arabia and OPEC+ play in managing the oil markets.    Further Reading CSIS Press Briefing: Previewing President Biden’s Trip to the Middle East, July 6, 2022 To Boost Energy Security, Keep It Simple: Add Supply, Cut Demand by Ben Cahill, July 7, 2022 Don't Expect Saudi Arabia to Save the Day by Ben Cahill, July 13, 2022

This week, Laszlo Varro, Vice President for Global Business Environment at Shell, joins Joseph Majkut (CSIS) to discuss the Shell Scenarios, and how these different scenarios can help us navigate the energy security, geopolitical, and climate concerns of our present-day energy landscape. For more, check out the Shell Scenarios.

This week Kay Harrison, New Zealand’s Climate Ambassador joins Joseph Majkut (CSIS) to discuss how New Zealand is advancing its national and regional climate actions. Kay was appointed to her position in 2019 and participated in COP26 where New Zealand updated its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) and announced increased climate finance, signalling further commitment to its climate change action. They talk about New Zealand’s national net zero commitment and how it is being integrated across the country. Lastly, Kay and Joseph look back to if there has been progress on the COP26 commitments look at ahead to COP27 in Egypt and what needs to happen there to keep up the momentum on global climate action.

This bonus episode is from the recent event with U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm and Canadian Minister of Natural Resources Jonathan Wilkinson. They joined Joseph Majkut, director of the CSIS Energy Security & Climate Change Program, for a conversation on areas of U.S.-Canada energy cooperation, including efforts to decarbonize, actions to address the current global energy crisis, and joint efforts to enhance North American energy security.  

This week on Energy 360, Peter Irvine (University College London) and Jesse Reynolds (Paris Peace Forum) talk with Joseph Makjut (CSIS) about the future of combatting climate change and how human interventions, including the potential of technologies like solar geoengineering, could play a role.   Guests: Dr. Peter Irvine, Lecturer in Climate Change & Solar Geoengineering, University College London (UCL) Earth Sciences. Dr. Jesse Reynolds, Senior Policy Officer, the Global Commission on Governing Risks from Climate Overshoot, Paris Peace Forum For more, check out their podcast, Challenging Climate

On May 11th, the U.S. Department of Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) will hold its first offshore wind energy lease sale of the Carolinas. Ahead of this sale, Morgan Higman (CSIS) talks with officials from North Carolina, Massachusetts, and New York, about how their states are working to secure economic benefits for their states from the development of the offshore wind sector. Guests: Jennifer R.F. Mundt, Assistant Secretary of Clean Energy Economic Development, North Carolina Department of Commerce, where she leads the state’s efforts to secure economic development and workforce opportunities in the clean energy sector. Bruce Carlisle, Managing Director, Offshore Wind, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, where he leads efforts to advance the successful and responsible development of the offshore wind sector in Massachusetts. Georges Sassine, Vice President, Large Scale Renewables, New York State Energy Research & Development Authority (NYSERDA), where he works to advance land-based renewa

This week Dr. Martin Skiba, chairman of the World Forum Offshore Wind and a board member of the Offshore Wind Power Foundation, spoke with Joseph Majkut, director of the CSIS Energy Security and Climate Change Program about offshore wind developments. Dr. Skiba walks us through how Germany was able to grow its domestic offshore wind industry and how the industry is moving into global markets.

This week Ed Crooks (WoodMac) joins Joseph Majkut (CSIS) to focus on energy security in light of the ongoing Russian invasion in Ukraine. Ed and Joseph discuss the sanctions on Russia, how the U.S. and Europe are rethinking energy security, and what policy options are available to alleviate the short term supply side challenges without upsetting long term climate goals.

This week, Mzila  Mthenjane with Exxaro Resources in South Africa and Dr. Raju Evr with the Indian Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change, join Sandeep Pai of the Just Transition Initiative to look at the role of environmental remediation plays in the just transition agenda.  For more, read Understanding Just Transitions in Coal Dependent Communities: Case Studies from Mpumalanga, South Africa, and Jharkhand, India   

This week, climate risk expert Maarten van Aalst talks with Joseph Majkut, CSIS Energy Security and Climate Change Program Director, about key findings from the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, released last month. Dr. van Aalst, Director, Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre and Chair in Climate and Disaster Resilience at ITC, University of Twente, is the Coordinating Lead Author in Working Group II chapter on key risks and impacts.

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas and reducing methane emissions across the oil and natural gas supply chain is an important part of meeting global climate goals. This week, Fiji George and Arvind Ravikumar joined my colleague Ben Cahill to help us understand why this is so important and what needs to be done to speed up emissions reductions. Fiji George is Senior Director for Climate & Sustainability at Cheniere Energy, Inc., and Dr. Arvind Ravikumar is Research Associate Professor in the Petroleum Engineering department at the University of Texas at Austin and a fellow at the Payne Institute for Public Policy at the Colorado School of Mines.  Further Reading from the CSIS Project on Engaging Global Gas Players on Methane Emissions: Methane Emissions and the Gas Ecosystem: Buyers, Sellers, and Banks   Disclosure: Dr. Ravikumar’s research group at UT Austin is supported in part through funding provided by Cheniere. CSIS also receives general funding from Cheniere.

In the United States, states are often leaders in advancing climate and energy objectives. The state regulatory utility commissioners who oversee electricity and gas services can be especially influential in guiding the development of new, clean energy infrastructure. This week on Energy 360, Morgan Higman (Clean Resilient States Initiative, CSIS) spoke with commissioners from Arizona, Colorado, and Washington to understand their roles and learn their perspectives and agendas for climate and energy policies.  Guests:  Chairman Eric Blank, Colorado Public Utilities Commission  Chairwoman Lea Márquez Peterson, Arizona Corporation Commission  Commissioner Ann Rehndal, Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission  Further Reading from the CSIS Clean Resilient States Initiative: State Strategies for Expanding Economic Opportunity in Clean Energy    

This week, the CSIS Energy Security and Climate Change Program looks at some of the energy implications from growing tensions between Ukraine and Russia. Joseph Majkut, Nikos Tsafos, and Ben Cahill look at recent developments to understand what a possible invasion of Russia into the Ukraine would mean for EU energy security and international energy markets. They also discuss the policy and market levers that the United States and the EU have available to counter any interruptions to the energy supply or to punish potential actions by Russia.  For more, please see recent CSIS analysis: Ben Cahill: Oil Market Cannot Afford to Lose Russian Supplies https://www.csis.org/analysis/oil-market-cannot-afford-lose-russian-supplies Nikos Tsafos: Can European Energy Cope with a Conflict in Ukraine? https://www.csis.org/analysis/can-european-energy-cope-conflict-ukraine Nikos Tsafos: To Deter Russia, Threaten its Role in the Green Economy https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy/opinion/to-deter-russia-threaten-its-role-in

This week on Energy 360, Dr. Joshua Rhodes, an energy expert at the University of Texas at Austin, joins Morgan Higman (CSIS Energy) to look back at the February 2021 electric power crisis in Texas. Last year, a major winter storm caused devastating power outages across Texas. Joshua and Morgan look at some of the underlying reasons that Texas was not able to manage the electric grid during that storm, what preventative and resilience measures or changes to the grid have been put into place since the storm, and whether these would be enough to prevent something similar from happening again.

This week, John Larsen (Rhodium Group) joins Joseph Majkut (CSIS) to look at how the United States could create a policy action plan to meet the Biden administration’s target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50-52 percent by 2030. John and his colleagues provided an in-depth look at the federal and state level steps needed to meet this target in their report, Pathways to Paris: A Policy Assessment of the 2030 US Climate Target.  https://rhg.com/research/us-climate-policy-2030

This week, Sarah Ladislaw (RMI) and Liam Denning (Bloomberg) join Nikos Tsafos (CSIS) to look back at what happened in energy and climate over the last year. 2021 saw the world’s climate leaders focused on the November U.N. Climate meetings in Glasgow and the Biden Administration come in with a sweeping new agenda. Where was real progress made or lost?  How could it impact energy and climate policy developments as we move into 2022? (Recorded on December 14, 2021). 

This week, Artem Abramov (Rystad Energy) and Casey Merriman (Energy Intelligence) join Ben Cahill (CSIS) for a discussion about what’s next for U.S. shale production.  They look at recent production trends and investor pressure in U.S. oil and gas sector and what that might indicate for the coming year. They also consider possible impacts from recent policy actions coming from the Biden administration, especially those concerning drilling on public lands.