Topic:

Topic: Geopolitics

Latest

[Episode #271] – China Update 2026

Mar 11 2026

China's total CO2 emissions went flat and slowly started declining almost two years ago, but you probably wouldn't know it from reading the news about how its pipeline of coal power plant projects surged to a record high in 2025.

Similarly, recent data shows that China's coal power output fell by 1% in 2025, even as it built more coal plants than it had in a decade.

These kinds of conundrums are typical for China, with its complex interaction of economic forces and top-down state planning. But once you understand what's driving them, it all makes sense—just not a Western economic kind of sense.

To help us untangle this picture, we welcome back Lauri Myllyvirta, co-founder and lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), who last joined us in Episode #138, all the way back in 2021. We were overdue for an update.

In this episode, we dig into this coal conundrum—why China added 78 GW of new coal capacity in 2025, more than India built in an entire decade, even as customers pay $14 billion a year in capacity payments to coal plants that may not even run. We look at the 315 GW of solar and 120 GW of wind China added last year, and how 75 GW of new storage is helping to displace coal power. And we discuss why China's clean energy investments now make up more than a third of its GDP growth—without them, 2025 growth would have been 3.5% instead of 5%.

Although its fleet of coal power plants continues to grow, there is good news here. Because as the largest energy consumer in the world, China's declining emissions mean emissions are declining globally.

Guest:

Lauri Myllyvirta is the lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA). Lauri has over 10 years’ experience as an air pollution and climate expert. He has led numerous research projects on air pollution, assessing air quality and health impacts of energy policies, including more than a dozen modeling studies of the air quality and health impacts of coal-fired power plants. This research has been published and utilized in numerous countries in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, Europe, Turkey, South Africa and others. Lauri has also contributed to numerous publications around energy solutions and air pollution and is asked frequently to attend seminars and conferences as an expert speaker. He served as a member of the Technical Working Group on regulating emissions from large combustion plants in the EU and currently serves as a member of the expert panel on regulating SO2 emissions in South Africa.

On Bluesky: @laurimyllyvirta.bsky.social

On Twitter: @laurimyllyvirta

On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauri-myllyvirta-3164703b/

On the Web: Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) | Lauri’s page at CarbonBrief

Geek rating: 7

(more…)

[Episode #270] – View from the Energy Transitions Commission

Feb 25 2026

Mini Episode

Both the IEA and BNEF now project that current policies put us on track for roughly 2.5°C of warming. Some voices, like Daniel Yergin and Bill Gates, argue we should accept that trajectory and focus only on the technologies that are already winning. But even 2.5°C is still much too high. We can and must do better.

To help us take stock of the global energy transition in today's conversation, we are fortunate to be joined by Lord Adair Turner, co-chair of the Energy Transitions Commission (ETC), headquartered in London. The Commission is a global coalition of major power and industrial companies, investors, environmental NGOs, and experts working on achievable pathways to limit global warming while stimulating economic development and social progress. Lord Turner chaired the UK Climate Change Committee from 2008 to 2012, chairs insurance group Chubb Europe, and is a crossbench (non-partisan) member of the House of Lords.

We discuss how the transition is reshaping geopolitics, why the ETC's forecasts for green hydrogen have been cut roughly in half, and what Europe's green industrial policy (including its carbon border adjustment mechanism) needs to get right. We explore the roles of China and the UK in mobilizing capital for the developing world, how the UK has achieved a 75% decarbonization of its power sector in just 14 years, and what Turner calls 'double banking' — the core challenge of the mid-transition, where we're paying to build new energy systems while the old ones can't yet be switched off.

Turner makes the case that well below 2°C is still achievable, but only if we return to the climate imperative alongside the technological opportunity.

Guest:

Lord Adair Turner chairs the Energy Transitions Commission, a global coalition of major power and industrial companies, investors, environmental NGOs and experts working out achievable pathways to limit global warming to below 2˚C by 2040 while stimulating economic development and social progress.

In addition, he is chairman of insurance group Chubb Europe as well as of Oaknorth Bank (a UK start-up lending money to small and medium companies); he is a board member of battery production company AESC Japan; and Advisor to Watershed Technologies Inc. since 2023.

Lord Turner chaired the UK’s Financial Services Authority from 2008 to 2013, overseeing the UK’s policy and regulatory response to the Global Financial Crisis and playing a lead role in the post crisis redesign of global banking and shadow banking regulation.

During his public policy career, he was Director General of the Confederation of British Industry (1995-2000); chaired the UK Low Pay Commission (2002-2006); the Pensions Commision (2003-2006); and the UK Climate Change Committee (2008-2012) an independent body to advise the UK Government on tackling climate change. The recommendations set out in their first report “Building a low-carbon economy” were adopted in 2009. He became a cross bench member of the House of Lords in 2006.

Amongst his business roles, Lord Turner was at McKinsey & Co (1982-1995) and has served in several Non-Executive Directorships across a wide range of financial, business and not-for-profit boards, such as Merrill Lynch Europe (2000-2006), Standard Chartered plc (2006-2008), Prudential (2015-2019), Overseas Development Institute (2007-20200, Save the Children (2006-2008).

Lord Turner is the author of “Between Debt and the Devil” (Princeton 2015), and Economics after the Crisis (MIT 2012). He makes regular contributions in the printed press, in the UK and abroad.

He is a Trustee Emeritus of the British Museum, honorary fellow of The Royal Society, and received an Honorary Degree from Cambridge University in 2017.

Lord Turner has an MA in History (First class with Distinction) and an MA in Economics (First Class) from Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University.

On X: @AdairTurnerUK

Energy Transitions Commission on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/energy-transitions-commission/

On the Web: Energy Transitions Commission

Geek rating: 6

(more…)

[Episode #269] – Trump’s War on the Energy Transition

Feb 11 2026

Mini Episode

In the first year of his second term, President Donald Trump waged an all-out war on the energy transition. His administration canceled hundreds of projects created under the Inflation Reduction Act, IIJA, and CHIPS Act, blocked offshore wind farm development, and forced aging fossil-fueled power plants to continue operating after their utility owners planned to shut them down. It weaponized every federal agency from Interior to the Department of Commerce against renewable energy, seized Venezuela's oil, and pulled the US out of participation in key UN climate bodies.

The results have been staggering. Over 22 GW of wind and solar projects have been thwarted or thrown into limbo, and fully half of the country's planned new power capacity, some 117 GW, is at risk of delay. The Department of Energy has issued "emergency" orders to keep six aging coal and gas plants open, invoking a provision of the Federal Power Act originally written for wartime. None of these federal interventions were requested by a utility, grid operator, or state regulator. Courts have been pushing back hard, calling these actions arbitrary, capricious, unreasonable, and seemingly unjustified.

Whether any of these executive actions will survive is the central question. In today's conversation, we are rejoined by Ari Peskoe, Director of the Electricity Law Initiative at Harvard Law School, to walk through dozens of Trump's energy interventions and assess which ones are likely to hold up against the growing wave of legal challenges being brought against them. As we discuss, the courts are doing a surprisingly effective job of striking down the administration's illegal maneuvers. But every project delayed or canceled while the cases grind through court is inflicting real damage on the energy transition.

Guest:

Ari Peskoe is Director of the Electricity Law Initiative at Harvard Law School. He has written extensively about electricity regulation, on issues ranging from rooftop solar to Constitutional challenges to states’ energy laws.

On Twitter: @AriPeskoe

On the Web: Electricity Law Initiative at Harvard Law School

Geek rating: 1

(more…)

[Episode #267] – Japan: Petrostate or Electrostate?

Jan 14 2026

Mini Episode

Depending on where you live, the energy transition might feel like it's stalling or accelerating faster than ever. Countries are sorting themselves into two camps: petrostates seeking to stay on the fossil fuel path, and electrostates racing toward renewables, batteries, EVs, and other "electrotech." Under Trump, the US is joining Russia and Saudi Arabia in the petrostate camp, while China is leading much of the rest of the world in the opposite direction by exporting electrotech to the developing world as well as developed countries that lack domestic fossil fuel resources.

But as countries follow different paths through the energy transition, where does that leave Japan? Importing 100% of its oil and gas means it ranks among the world's most energy-vulnerable nations. After the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant disaster in 2011, Japan has lost more than a decade to inaction, stuck between a public that no longer trusts nuclear power and a political establishment reluctant to abandon enormous sunk costs in nuclear capacity. Now Japan has reached a crossroads. It can side with the petrostates, go with the electrostates, or try to straddle the line between them.

To explore Japan's options, Chris interviewed Nobuo Tanaka, former Executive Director of the International Energy Agency from 2007 to 2011. Tanaka now chairs the steering committee of Japan's Innovation for Cool Earth Forum and advises Japanese and international companies on energy strategy.

In this conversation, we'll hear Tanaka's bold proposal for Japan, Korea, and China to set aside their historical conflicts and form an electrostate alliance, much as France and Germany did after World War II when they created the European Coal and Steel Community. Tanaka also makes the case for a new generation of nuclear technology as Japan's path forward, a view on which he and Chris differ, though they agree on the stakes. And, based on his long experience in international geopolitical forums, Tanaka explains how US policy is pushing Europe and much of the rest of the world closer to China.

Guest:

Nobuo Tanaka is Executive Director Emeritus, The International Energy Agency (IEA).

Nobuo Tanaka is Chairman of the steering committee of the Innovation for Cool Earth Forum (ICEF), which was established by former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2014. As Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA) from 2007 to 2011, he initiated a collective release of oil stocks in June 2011. He began his career in 1973 in the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), and has served in a number of high-ranking positions, including Director- General of the Multilateral Trade System Department. He was deeply engaged in bilateral trade issues with the US as Minister for Industry, Trade and Energy at the Embassy of Japan, Washington DC. He has also served twice as Director for Science, Technology and Industry (DSTI) of the Paris-based international organization, OECD. As CEO of Tanaka Global Inc, he advises several Japanese and International companies.

Geek rating: 8

(more…)

[Episode #164] – Political Economy of Energy Transitions

Jan 19 2022

Mini Episode

The energy transition is about much more than just switching one fuel for another—like replacing coal with renewables. Transition happens in the context of our societies, which are strongly influenced by the economic interests of various actors and their political power; aspects of global trade; and the impact of those technologies on the ecological environment. And ultimately, these facets of the transition can have even more influence over the outcome than the characteristics of technologies themselves. We could have the best energy transition solutions in the world, but if we can’t get them actually deployed because incumbents on the losing end of energy transition resist, the transition will fail.

One way we can understand those influences is by looking at their histories, as well as their contemporary political economies. But these aspects of the energy transition haven’t received nearly as much attention or study as the technologies themselves, so we're taking a look in Episode #164.

In this episode, we speak with Peter Newell, a researcher at the University of Sussex in the UK, about his new book titled Power Shift: The Global Political Economy of Energy Transitions. It offers a helpful, five-part framework for understanding the political economy of the energy transition, and draws upon history, academic literature, the author’s own experience with renewable energy projects, as well as other sources to offer some useful insights about the forces that resist the energy transition, as well as how to make the energy transition a success—not only in economic terms, but also in terms of environmental and social justice.

Geek rating: 3

(more…)

[Episode #121] – Winning and Losing the Policy Game

May 13 2020

Mini Episode

Conventional thinking is that policy supports the advancement of clean energy gradually and progressively, with hard-won gains setting up further success over time. And sometimes, it does play out this way. But sometimes it doesn’t, too. Our guest in this episode, Dr. Leah Stokes of UC Santa Barbara, describes the policymaking around energy transition as a matter of “organized combat” between clean energy advocates and incumbents in the utility and fossil fuel sectors — a process of combat which produces winners and losers. And rather than be shy about that, she argues, advocates for climate action and energy transition need to learn from their opponents and get much more organized and serious about winning policy battles.

In this two-hour interview, we talk through the history of clean energy policymaking, and how it was rolled back or thwarted, in four U.S. states. Step by step and case by case, we can learn from her original research what the winning tactics are, and how to lock in victories when we win them. This episode is critical listening for anyone involved in policymaking, regulatory interventions, crafting legislation, or activism.

Geek rating: 3

(more…)

[Episode #88] – Energy Trade in Transition

Feb 6 2019

Mini Episode

The global energy trade is enormously complex, and its geopolitical implications are vast, but they are only made more complex by energy transition. If the US exports gas to Europe and Asia, might you expect it to largely displace coal in their power plants? Think again! What will be the geopolitical ramifications on our relationship with Russia, as we send more of our gas to China and India? And as the US weans itself off of coal, and seeks to export more coal abroad, will it be stymied by energy transition in foreign countries, as well as political impediments at home?

And what of US “energy independence?” Does it mean that the US is actually self-sufficient in energy, or even just in fossil fuels, in the sense that we may not need imports anymore? And what is the value of it anyway, especially if it also means increased dependence on export markets abroad?

Tune in as we explore some of the fascinating questions about the implications of energy transition on energy trade in this interview, and be prepared to be surprised by some of our guest’s answers!

Geek rating: 8

(more…)