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In Brazil, the energy transition is pushed and prodded by conflicting forces.
Its government is taking significant steps to cut emissions. For example, in August, it passed a much-anticipated low-carbon hydrogen framework; and in November, a law to create a regulated carbon market. And since taking office in 2023, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has spearheaded significant reductions in deforestation of the Amazon rainforest.
But Brazil is also Latin America’s biggest producer of oil, and it has been ramping up its output.
In light of Brazil’s strategic role in climate – it currently holds the presidency of the G-8, and in 2025 it will host COP30 – we’re rerunning an episode from February digging into Brazil’s energy transition.
How is the energy transition in Brazil unfolding amid these conflicting pressures? And how can the country balance environmental protection and energy security?
Bill Loveless talks with Thiago Barral about how Brazil plans to build up clean energy technologies, and how geopolitics shapes that strategy.
Thiago is the national secretary of planning and energy transition of the Ministry of Mines and Energy for Brazil. Before his role as secretary, he was the president of the Energy Research Company, a Brazilian institution responsible for energy planning studies and official state energy statistics. Thiago joined the Energy Research Company in 2007, and also served as director of energy economics and environmental studies.
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The headline from this year’s World Energy Outlook released by the International Energy Agency says, “The world is on the brink of a new age of electricity.” In the United States, electrification is set to transform the energy landscape, and the nation is expected to see a rapid rise in power demand.
Questions remain over how this demand will be met, and if this means increasing carbon emissions from the power sector. These questions are further complicated by the rise of artificial intelligence and an antiquated and fragmented electric grid.
So how do efforts to decarbonize the century-old power system impact both reliability and the cost of electricity? And what does this new era of rising electricity demand mean for domestic manufacturing, AI data centers, and other industries?
This week host Jason Bordoff talks with Cheryl LaFleur and David Hill about the incoming Trump administration, its impact on FERC, and the status of permitting reform measures.
Cheryl is an advisory board member at the Center on Global Energy Policy. Previously, she was one of the longest-serving commissioners on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission from 2010 to 2019, and served twice as FERC’s chair. Since 2019, Cheryl has served on the board of directors of the Independent System Operator of New England (ISO-NE).
David is a non-resident fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy. He served as general counsel of the U.S. Department of Energy during the George W. Bush administration. From 2012 to 2018, he served as executive vice president and general counsel of NRG Energy, Inc.
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The international climate negotiation process stands at a critical juncture. At the recent COP29 summit in Azerbaijan, nations struggled to find common ground on financial support and carbon market strategies, all while grappling with the persistent influence of fossil fuel industries.
Industrialized countries did pledge $300 billion to help developing nations adapt to climate change, but scientists say the commitment is still far short of the trillion dollars needed to prevent catastrophic environmental impacts.
So, how can global leaders close the financing gap? And what practical approaches can ensure meaningful progress in climate negotiations amid rapidly changing political landscapes?
This week host Bill Loveless talks with Elliot Diringer about the COP process and what the outcome of this year’s summit means for the global energy transition.
Elliot is a global fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University SIPA, directing the Center's International Dialogue on Climate and Trade. He served as a senior policy advisor to Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry and led the establishment of the Energy Transition Accelerator under the Biden administration. Elliot also spent more than 20 years at the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, serving as the head of the international program. He has attended 26 Conference of the Parties summits, most recently attending COP29 in Azerbaijan.
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The energy transition is transforming how we power our world – clean energy systems are becoming more interconnected, automated, and reliant on digital infrastructure. But with this transformation comes a new vulnerability: cyberattacks. As our grid becomes smarter and our system more digitized, the potential for disruption grows.
Earlier this year, the FBI warned of a serious threat that Chinese hackers had infiltrated U.S. critical infrastructure systems, raising the possibility of a “devastating blow” to energy and other vital services.
The stakes are clear. As we move forward with the energy transition – and increasingly digitizing and electrifying our systems – we are increasingly vulnerable to cyber attacks.
This week, host Jason Bordoff speaks with Harry Krejsa about the cybersecurity risks at the intersection of operational technology and information technology in the clean energy transition, the destructive capabilities of China and Russia on American critical infrastructure, and what we should be doing about it.
Harry is the director of studies at the Carnegie Mellon Institute for Strategy & Technology. He was previously in the Biden White House’s Office of the National Cyber Director. There, he led development of the Biden-Harris administration’s National Cybersecurity Strategy, established national clean energy security priorities, and represented the U.S. government in technology security consultations with foreign partners and the global private sector.
Prior to that, Harry worked at the intersection of technology, industrial strategy, and U.S.-China competition for the Department of Defense, the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, and the Center for a New American Security.
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The clean energy transition has a dirty underside. To move away from fossil fuels and toward solar, wind, batteries, and other alternative sources of energy, we have to intensify mining operations for critical minerals like lithium, copper, and cobalt.
According to a Global Witness analysis of S&P Global data, copper mining will increase more than 25% between 2021 and 2028. Cobalt mining will be up more than 100%. Lithium, more than 300%. And all that mining has serious environmental and social impacts, particularly in developing countries.
This week, host Bill Loveless talks with Vince Beiser about his latest book “Power Metal: The Race for the Resources That Will Shape the Future.”
Vince is an author and journalist whose work has appeared in Wired, Harper’s Magazine, The Atlantic, and The New York Times, among other publications.
They discuss cleaning up the chase for critical minerals, advancing the clean energy transition while minimizing mining impacts globally, and what role the U.S. government can play, particularly with an incoming Trump administration.
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Rising electricity demand. Heightened geopolitical tension. Fragility in energy markets. These are some of the big stories shaping the energy transition outlined in the International Energy Agency’s newest World Energy Outlook.
Even as the IEA says the world is shifting from the "Age of Oil" to the "Age of Electricity," we are still far from achieving net-zero targets. And the tensions highlighted in the latest Energy Outlook illustrate how difficult the transition will be.
This week, host Jason Bordoff talks with Tim Gould about the 2024 World Energy Outlook, published in October. They discuss the significant progress countries have made on the energy transition, and the structural shifts in economies and energy use that lie ahead.
Tim is the International Energy Agency's chief energy economist. As part of his role, he co-leads the World Energy Outlook. Tim joined the IEA in 2008 as a specialist on Russian and Caspian energy. Prior to joining the IEA, he worked on European and Eurasian energy issues in Brussels.
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In passing and signing the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, Congress and the Biden administration infused hundreds of billions of dollars into the energy transition. It was the largest investment in energy and climate in U.S. history.
At the same time, the law left many countries worried over provisions requiring domestic manufacturing, which some see as protectionist. It’s a friction that’s part of ongoing green trade tensions. As other countries implement their own major climate action plans, some include industrial policies that challenge international trade rules and norms.
Two years in, how are other countries responding to the Inflation Reduction Act? Can trade policy catalyze investment in and around clean energy in emerging markets and developing economies? And what does the concept of “friendshoring” mean?
This week host Jason Bordoff talks with Sarah Bianchi about her work in the Biden administration and how climate policy and trade policy intersect.
Sarah is a senior managing director and chief strategist of international political affairs and public policy at Evercore ISI. She is a distinguished visiting fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy and is on the advisory board of CGEP’s new Trade and Clean Energy Transition Program to examine the intersection of climate action, trade policy, national security, and industrial strategy.
She has nearly 30 years of experience in both the public and private sector. Most recently, she served as deputy U.S. trade representative from 2021 to 2024, overseeing critical trading relationships across Asia and Africa. Her portfolio covered all aspects of trade, including the energy transition and the implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act.
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In 1953, the New York Yankees beat the Brooklyn Dodgers in the World Series, “From Here to Eternity” won the Academy Award for Best Motion Picture. And on May 24 deep in the education section of The New York Times, there was a short piece titled “How Industry May Change Climate.”
In the years after, scientists went from writing about the possible impacts of pollution on climate to warning U.S. presidents. And energy policy expert and scholar Jay Hakes says there’s much more to the story.
From scientists who quietly worked to address growing environmental threats, to lawmakers who deliberated in Congress and the White House over what to do about them, Jay says there’s a history that hasn’t been told. In his new book, Jay looks at these early climate change pioneers and asks about the challenges they faced.
What was it like trying to influence the White House? What solutions did these pioneers offer? And how can their stories further our discourse around climate change today?
This week, we go back to a conversation from August between host Bill Loveless and Jay Hakes about his book “The Presidents and the Planet: Climate Change Science and Politics from Eisenhower to Bush.”
Jay is a scholar and author on U.S. energy policy. From 2000-2013 he served as the director of the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library. He also served in both the Obama and Clinton administrations, including a seven-year stint as director of the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Jay’s other books include “Energy Crises: Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Hard Choices in the 1970s” and “A Declaration of Energy Independence.”
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Emerging markets and developing economies are set to account for the largest source of emissions growth in the coming decades, according to the International Energy Agency. As population growth in developing countries around the world increases, so will their demand for energy. And historically, these countries have looked to fossil fuels to support their demand growth.
But even though emissions from these countries are increasing, their historical cumulative emissions pale in comparison to those emitted by a few wealthy countries – including the U.S. It’s an imbalance that has major implications when it comes to equity and the energy transition.
This week host Jason Bordoff talks with Rahul Tongia about his work on climate equity and his views on net-zero emissions commitments. They also discuss carbon pricing, as well as his approach to establish a system that incentivizes low-emissions countries to keep their emissions lower, even as they use fossil fuels for longer.
Rahul is a senior fellow with the Centre for Social and Economic Progress in New Delhi, where he co-leads the Energy, Natural Resources, and Sustainability group. He helped establish the Smart Grid space in India and is founding advisor of the India Smart Grid Forum. Rahul is a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a professor at Carnegie Mellon University.
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The artificial intelligence boom is fueling a massive uptick in energy demand globally.
A Goldman Sachs report from earlier this year claimed that processing a single ChatGPT query requires almost ten times the amount of electricity as a single Google search.
But it’s not just ChatGPT queries driving up demand. As we transition to more renewable energy sources, AI is becoming critical to managing and improving efficiency across our electric grid.
So how are some of the biggest American tech companies securing the power they need to meet demand? They’re going nuclear.
Tech giant Microsoft recently secured a deal to restart the last functional reactor at Three Mile Island with access to 100% of the power generated. And Amazon announced a $500 million investment to develop small modular nuclear reactors. It’s a sign that large tech companies see data centers – and the AI they enable – as critical to their futures.
This week, host Bill Loveless talks with Jason Bordoff and Jared Dunnmon about their latest co-written column for Foreign Policy, titled “America’s AI Leadership Depends on Energy.”
Jason is founding director of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. He’s also a professor of professional practice in international and public affairs, the co-founding dean emeritus at the Columbia Climate School, and a former senior director on the staff of the U.S. National Security Council.
Jared is a nonresident fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy. He’s also a former technical director for artificial intelligence at the U.S. Defense Department’s Defense Innovation Unit.
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Escalating tensions between Israel and Iran, the world’s seventh-largest producer of crude oil, have fueled concern over oil price volatility for the past few weeks.
But the oil market isn’t reacting to geopolitical tensions in the Middle East as dramatically as it has in the past. Despite an ongoing war in Gaza and Israel, Israel’s attack on Hezbollah, and attacks by Houthis in the Red Sea, the price of oil hasn’t changed much. China’s slowing economy and the U.S.’ increased domestic production of oil seem to be keeping prices down… at least for now.
Still, renewed fighting between Israel and Iran has oil markets feeling nervous. A regional war could drive up prices, impacting the global economy.
In an interview recorded yesterday, host Jason Bordoff talks with Helima Croft and Javier Blas about the current state of oil markets, and how global instability could impact their future.
Helima is a managing director and head of global commodity strategy and Middle East and North Africa research at RBC Capital Markets. Helima joined RBC Capital Markets from Barclays, where she was a managing director and head of North American commodities research.
Javier is an opinion columnist for Bloomberg covering energy and commodities. Javier is coauthor of the 2021 book “The World for Sale: Money, Power and the Traders Who Barter the Earth’s Resources.”
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Europe is facing a critical challenge. When it comes to advanced technology innovation, labor productivity, and affordable energy, it's not keeping up with the U.S. and China. At least that’s the take from Mario Draghi, former European Central Bank president, in his European Commission report last month titled, “The Future of European Competitiveness.”
The last five years for the European Union have been tumultuous – from the pandemic to an energy crisis sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, to the European Green Deal. How Europe moves forward in the face of these challenges will directly impact its short and long-term energy security, and the pace of its transition to clean energy. And it’s all playing out against the backdrop of an ever-worsening climate crisis.
This week, host Jason Bordoff talks with Kadri Simson. Kadri has been the European Commissioner for Energy since 2019. Before that, she was the Estonian minister for economic affairs, and held various other positions in the Estonian government.
Kadri visited the Columbia campus during Climate Week in New York City.
They discussed the impact of Russia’s attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, Europe’s progress in weaning itself off Russian gas, and member states’ attitudes toward nuclear power, among other topics.
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According to recently released data, Norway is the first country in the world with more electric vehicles than gas-powered ones on the road. At the same time, the country is western Europe's largest oil and gas producer, with a total output of over four million barrels of oil equivalents per day.
While the country aims to be carbon neutral by 2030, Norwegian oil and gas investments are expected to hit a record high this year and will remain strong in 2025.
This week, host Jason Bordoff talks with Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre in a live event recorded at the Columbia World Leaders Forum in New York during Climate Week.
They discussed Norway’s progress toward becoming a green energy hub in Northern Europe and spoke about the obstacles the country faces in its pursuit of a green and secure energy future. Columbia students then joined the conversation, asking questions about everything from Norway’s role in the global energy transition to insights the country could offer the rest of the world.
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Back in 2012, the Department of Defense issued a first-of-its-kind “Climate Change Adaptation Roadmap.” It was designed to prepare the U.S. military for increasing threats to national security in the form of rising sea levels, increasing global temperatures, and growing conflicts over basic resources like food and water. It stated that “Climate change is expected to play a significant role in the DOD’s ability to fulfill its mission in the future.”
Fast-forward to today, and Sherri Goodman says the DOD now sees combating climate change as central to its mission.
Sherri was appointed the first-ever deputy undersecretary of defense focusing on environmental security. One of her first assignments was cleaning up nuclear weapons development and production sites. And in 1998, she helped develop the military’s first climate change plan, focused mainly on reducing emissions.
This week, host Bill Loveless talks with Sherri about her latest book, “Threat Multiplier: Climate, Military Leadership, and the Fight for Global Security.” Sherri explains how far the military’s approach to climate change has come over the past 25 years.
Sherri is secretary general of the International Military Council on Climate and Security and a senior fellow at the Wilson Center. She’s also founder and former executive director of the Center for Naval Analyses Military Advisory Board and is board chair of the Council on Strategic Risks, which includes the Center for Climate and Security.
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It’s no secret that Republicans and Democrats don’t see eye to eye on climate change.
According to a Pew Research Survey conducted earlier this year, just 12% of Republicans and Republican-leaners think climate change should be a top priority for the president and Congress. Meanwhile, the official 2024 Democratic party platform states there’s “nothing more important than addressing the climate crisis."
Energy and environmental law professor David Spence says today’s news and social media are partly responsible for the divide.
In his new book, “Climate of Contempt: How to Rescue the U.S. Energy Transition from Voter Partisanship,” David argues it’s all but impossible for the government to take significant action to address global warming in a media environment focused on persuading more than educating.
This week host Bill Loveless talks with David about his book and his perspective on the ideological polarization and negative partisanship that’s been building in the U.S. in the past 10-15 years. And how he believes getting us all offline and engaging with each other in person can help push regulatory politics forward.
David is the Rex G. Baker Chair in Natural Resources Law in the School of Law at the University of Texas at Austin. He’s also a professor of business, government, and society in the McCombs School of Business at UT Austin, where he teaches courses in energy and environmental regulation. And he’s co-author of a leading casebook “Energy, Economics, and the Environment.”
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Thanks to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act, the Department of Energy has been flush with cash for the past couple of years. Between the two measures, the DOE now has nearly $100 billion to put toward clean energy and grid development projects around the country through funding and loans.
There’s an expectation that these contributions will drive private investment—and they have been. This July, the DOE reported nearly $50 billion in funding awards already, with more than $60 billion in private investments matching federal dollars.
This week, host Bill Loveless talks with David Crane about where these funds have been going and what effects they’re having on clean energy applications around the country. They also discuss how the DOE is addressing nationwide energy challenges like transmission line permitting, storage, and other hurdles to decarbonization.
David is the under-secretary for infrastructure at the Department of Energy. He previously served as director of DOE’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations. He was also CEO of Climate Real Impact Solutions, as well as NRG Energy.
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China’s dominance of global supply chains for many goods, including clean energy technology, is increasing concerns about resilience, security, and geopolitical influence in today’s new era of great power competition. At the same time, efforts to curb China’s dominance are raising concerns about the cost of clean energy at a time when its rapid deployment is needed.
So are we in a new Cold War with China? Should American policymakers try to decouple from China? And how should policymakers address China’s supply chain dominance of the materials needed for the energy transition?
This week, host Jason Bordoff talks with Dmitri Alperovitch about his new book “World on the Brink: How America Can Beat China in the Race for the 21st Century.” They discuss what the strategic challenges from China mean for American policymakers, how the U.S. can diversify critical supply chains away from China, and the security of America’s energy infrastructure.
Dmitri is the co-founder and chairman of Silverado Policy Accelerator. He is a co-founder and former CTO of CrowdStrike. Dmitri previously served as special advisor to the Department of Defense and currently serves on the Department of Homeland Security Advisory Council and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency's Cyber Safety Review Board.
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In 1953, the New York Yankees beat the Brooklyn Dodgers in the World Series, “From Here to Eternity” won the Academy Award for Best Motion Picture. And on May 24 deep in the education section of The New York Times, there was a short piece titled “How Industry May Change Climate.”
In the years after, scientists went from writing about the possible impacts of pollution on climate to warning U.S. presidents. And energy policy expert and scholar Jay Hakes says there’s much more to the story.
From scientists who quietly worked to address growing environmental threats, to lawmakers who deliberated in Congress and the White House over what to do about them, Jay says there’s a history that hasn’t been told. In his new book, Jay looks at these early climate change pioneers and asks about the challenges they faced.
What was it like trying to influence the White House? What solutions did these pioneers offer? And how can their stories further our discourse around climate change today?
This week, host Bill Loveless talks with Jay Hakes about his book “The Presidents and the Planet: Climate Change Science and Politics from Eisenhower to Bush.”
Jay is a scholar and author on U.S. energy policy. From 2000-2013 he served as the director of the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library. He also served in both the Obama and Clinton administrations, including a seven-year stint as director of the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Jay’s other books include “Energy Crises: Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Hard Choices in the 1970s” and “A Declaration of Energy Policy Independence.”
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With her historic victory in Mexico’s presidential election in June, Claudia Sheinbaum will be the country’s first-ever female leader. And because of her background as a climate scientist who contributed to influential UN climate reports, many hope she will reverse Mexico’s drift away from climate leadership.
But it’s not simple. Sheinbaum is a political protégé of outgoing president Andrés Manuel López Obrador. In his six years as president, López Obrador was a popular leader, but failed to advance climate policy. In fact, Mexico is one of just two countries out of the G20 without a net-zero target for carbon emissions.
Even as López Obrador propped up the oil sector, the primary state-owned petroleum company Pemex is deep in debt and seeing four-decade lows in production. And Mexico’s heavy dependence on the U.S. for natural gas is a growing energy security issue for the country.
Sheinbaum has promised to boost clean energy – how effective will she be? Will she be able to address the country’s growing power demands and energy infrastructure challenges? And will she break from her predecessor’s lagging record on climate change?
This week, host Bill Loveless talks with Carlos Pascual about what a Sheinbaum presidency could mean for Mexico’s addressing the country’s energy issues, and encouraging more investment in clean energy in Mexico.
Carlos is senior vice president for Global Energy and International Affairs at S&P Global Commodity Insights, where he leads all business lines in Latin America. He was previously at IHS Markit, where he concentrated on worldwide energy issues and international affairs.
Carlos served as U.S. ambassador to Mexico from 2009 to 2011 and to Ukraine from 2000 to 2003. From 2011 to 2014 he was a special envoy and coordinator for international affairs at the U.S. Department of State, where he established and directed the agency’s Energy Resources Bureau. He was also a former resident fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy, Columbia SIPA.
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Global clean energy investment has risen by 40% since 2020, reaching an estimated $1.8 trillion in 2023, according to the International Energy Agency.
The cost of wind, solar, and batteries have fallen rapidly, often competing with fossil fuels, thanks to tech innovations, manufacturing scale, and policy support.
But the world still isn’t on track to reach its emission reduction targets. And now new forms of demand, such as data centers running artificial intelligence, are raising concerns about rising energy use and emissions.
So how do we encourage more innovation in clean energy? How do we mobilize investment to scale-up and commercialize emerging technologies? What is the role of the private sector and what kinds of policies do we need?
This week, host Jason Bordoff talks with Arun Majumdar about some of his views on emerging technologies and energy policy. They also discuss how higher education can adapt to provide the knowledge and skills needed in the clean energy economy.
Arun is the inaugural Dean of the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. He also serves as the Jay Precourt Provostial Chair Professor at Stanford University and Senior Fellow and former Director of the Precourt Institute for Energy. Formerly, he served as vice president for energy at Google.
In the Obama administration, Arun served as founding director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy and as the acting under secretary of energy. He also served as a Science Envoy for the U.S. Department of State and currently serves as the chair of the U.S. Secretary of Energy Advisory Board.
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