Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has sent oil and natural gas markets for a loop.
But less attention has been paid to the implications of the war for global energy and food security, particularly for the world’s least developed countries (LDCs).
For a deep dive into whether Western nations can still fulfill the climate finance promises made to LDCs in the midst of an unfolding global conflict and energy crisis in Europe, host Bill Loveless turned to Dr. Harry Verhoeven.
He’s a Senior Research Scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy who has collaborated extensively with key policy actors including the World Bank, the European Union, the United Nations and governments around the world. He is also the founder and Convenor of the Oxford University China-Africa Network.
In this conversation, Dr. Verhoeven outlines how the Russia-Ukraine conflict is destabilizing prices for certain food commodities like wheat and what the Russia-Ukraine war means for energy transitions of countries like Angola, Sudan and Mozambique.
Recently, Dr. Verhoeven authored a paper on the topic for CGEP called “International Energy Markets and Food Insecurity in the Least Developed Countries: The Russia-Ukraine Crisis and Beyond.” Soon, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development will release another report by Harry on the same topic.
Russia’s war on Ukraine is largely to blame for high energy prices in Europe as the continent competes with Asia for already tight supplies of non-Russian gas. And the scramble for alternatives to Russian gas has reached the US, where prices have doubled since the beginning of the year.
For a look at what the future holds for natural gas markets, host Jason Bordoff spoke with Ira Joseph. He’s the head of global generating fuels and electric power pricing at S&P Global Platts.
Ira has decades of experience researching the gas sector and previously worked at the PIRA Energy Group, where he started the firm’s European gas and power and Global LNG Service in 1999.
The pair discussed the factors contributing to the abnormally high gas prices and the implications for energy security, the clean energy transition and global climate commitments.
Russia’s oil and natural gas commodities get a lot of attention, but the country’s critical metals and minerals supplies – which include steel, titanium, nickel, cobalt and lithium – are also cause for concern.
Moscow’s military invasion of Ukraine could disrupt the global supply of these materials, which can be found in every corner of our lives. Notably, these minerals are essential components of clean energy technologies like solar panels, wind turbines and batteries for electric vehicles.
For a look at how global supply chains of critical minerals will be crucial to the energy transition – and how these supply chains can be managed effectively – host Bill Loveless spoke with Abigail Wulf. She’s the Vice President and Director of Critical Minerals Strategy at SAFE, a nonpartisan organization that promotes U.S. energy security policies.
Previously, she was a Senior Science Communicator at NASA where she worked to promote NASA's Earth Science research.
In this conversation, they discuss the implications of the war for critical mineral supply chains, China’s control over mineral processing facilities and steps the US government could take to develop sustainable mining projects.
Wildfires, extreme heat and particulate matter from fossil fuel power plants are increasingly affecting the well-being of people in the U.S. and other countries.
In this episode, host Bill Loveless visits with Dr. Renee Salas about the adverse impacts of climate change on public health. As a leading public health researcher and emergency medical doctor, Dr. Salas has published extensively and testified in Congress on the impact of climate change on healthcare and the medical system.
She served as the lead author of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change U.S. Brief since 2018.
Dr. Salas is a Yerby Fellow at the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She is also a practicing emergency medical physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and an assistant professor of emergency medicine at Harvard Medical School.
They bring us a compelling conversation about the mindset shift necessary to address the climate health crisis head on.