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Model and manage the changing geopolitics of energy

Transitioning to a low-carbon world will create new rivalries, winners and losers, argue Andreas Goldthau, Kirsten Westphal and colleagues.
  1. Morgan Bazilian

    1. Morgan Bazilian is director of the Payne Institute and a professor of public policy at the Colorado School of Mines, Golden, Colorado, USA.

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  2. Michael Bradshaw

    1. Michael Bradshaw is professor of global energy at Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK.

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  3. Andreas Goldthau

    1. Andreas Goldthau is professor of international relations at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK, and research group leader at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, Potsdam, Germany.

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  4. Kirsten Westphal

    1. Kirsten Westphal is senior associate in the Global Issues Division at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), Berlin, Germany. She leads the Geopolitics of Energy Transformation project funded by the German Federal Foreign Office.

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Energy is at the root of many political ructions. President Donald Trump’s intention to pull the United States out of the Paris climate agreement in 2020, the European Union’s restrictive policies against importing Chinese photovoltaic cells and the political hostility towards the school strikes over climate-change inaction are all reactions to attempts to shift the world to a low-carbon economy.

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Nature 569, 29-31 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-01312-5

References

  1. Global Commission on the Geopolitics of Energy Transformation. A New World: The Geopolitics of the Energy Transformation (IRENA, 2019).

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  2. International Energy Agency. Outlook for Producer Economies: What Do Changing Energy Dynamics Mean for Major Oil and Gas Exporters? (IEA, 2018).

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  3. Van de Graaf, T. & Bradshaw, M. Int. Aff. 94, 1309–1328 (2018).

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  4. Bazilian, M., Sovacool, B. & Moss, T. Glob. Policy 8, 422–425 (2017).

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  5. Goldthau, A. & Westphal, K. Glob. Policy https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12649 (2019).

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Competing Interests

Morgan Bazilian and Kirsten Westphal have served as members of the Expert Panel advising the IRENA Global Commission.

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