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[Episode #244] – Rethinking Industrial Strategy

Feb 26 2025

What makes for effective and enduring green industrial policy? How can public and private investment mobilize to achieve the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C goal? Can Trump undermine climate science and the global energy transition, or will the rest of the world carry on without the US? Which policy designs can drive equitable green growth, ensuring the energy transition benefits economically disadvantaged and indigenous communities?

Today’s guest, Mariana Mazzucato, is a Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London and the Founding Director of the UCL Institute for Innovation & Public Purpose. An author of four influential books on shaping capitalism, growth, and economic policy for the public good, she advises governments worldwide on innovation-led inclusive and sustainable growth. She chairs several governmental and inter-governmental organizations and produces reports designed to shape economic policies, particularly in the developing world.

In these challenging times of economic upheaval, Mariana’s ideas offer valuable guidance for policymakers as they craft industrial strategies to advance the energy transition.

Guest:

Mariana Mazzucato is Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London, where she is Founding Director of the UCL Institute for Innovation & Public Purpose (IIPP). Her previous posts include the RM Phillips Professorial Chair at the Science Policy Research Unit at Sussex University.

She is winner of international prizes including the Grande Ufficiale Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana in 2021, Italy’s highest civilian honour, the 2020 John von Neumann Award, the 2019 All European Academies Madame de Staël Prize for Cultural Values, and the 2018 Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought. She is a member of the UK Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS) and the Italian Academy of Sciences Lincei. Most recently, Pope Francis appointed her to the Pontifical Academy for Life for bringing ‘more humanity’ to the world.

She is the author of The Entrepreneurial State: debunking public vs. private sector myths (2013), The Value of Everything: making and taking in the global economy (2018), Mission Economy: a moonshot guide to changing capitalism (2021) and The Big Con: How the Consulting Industry Weakens our Businesses, Infantilizes our Governments and Warps our Economies (2023).

She advises policy makers around the world on innovation-led inclusive and sustainable growth. Her roles have included for example Co-Chair of the Group of Experts to the G20 Taskforce on a Global Mobilization against Climate Change, Chair of the World Health Organization’s Council on the Economics of Health for All, Co-Chair of the Global Commission on the Economics of Water, Co-Chair on the Council on Urban Initiatives, Commissioner for the Jubilee Report on Addressing the Debt and Development Crises in Countries from the South, and member of the South African President’s Economic Advisory Council. Previously, through her role as Special Advisor for the EC Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation (2017-2019), she authored the high-impact report on Mission-Oriented Research and Innovation in the European Union, turning “missions” into a crucial new instrument in the European Commission’s Horizon innovation programme, and more recently, authored a report with the UN’s Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) on Transformational Change in Latin America and the Caribbean: A mission-oriented approach.

On Bluesky: @mazzucatom.bsky.social

On Twitter: @MazzucatoM

On Substack marianamazzucato.substack.com

On the Web: https://marianamazzucato.com

UCL profile page: https://profiles.ucl.ac.uk/61409-mariana-mazzucato/about

Geek rating: 7

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[Episode #242] – IEA Outlook 2025

Jan 29 2025

Mini Episode

What important trends are shaping the energy transition today? And what is the outlook for oil and gas demand?

In this conversation, Tim Gould of the International Energy Agency (IEA) returns to discuss key insights from the agency’s flagship annual report, the World Energy Outlook 2024. We consider the enormous implications of IEA’s view that global demand for all fossil fuels will peak and begin a slow decline within the next five years. To explore this, we take a closer look at the state of the oil and gas industry, comparing its expectations to what climate science and energy system modeling tell us about the future of fossil fuels. We also consider how the energy transition could reduce overall demand for fossil fuels, creating excess supply imbalances that reshape global markets and trade geopolitics.

Our discussion also touches on the IEA’s forecast that low-emission electricity sources like solar, wind, and nuclear will account for more than half of global power generation before 2030. Further, we explore the rising energy demand from data centers, shifting expectations for hydrogen, and the investments needed to keep clean energy growing at a pace that meets our climate targets.

Guest:

Tim Gould is co-head of the World Energy Outlook series at the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA). He designs and directs the work together with the IEA’s Chief Energy Modeller and contributes to the Outlook as a principal author. He also oversees the Agency’s analysis of energy investment and finance, including the World Energy Investment series. Tim has been at the IEA since 2008, and joined initially as a specialist on Russian and Caspian energy before going across to join the World Energy Outlook team under the (then) Chief Economist, Fatih Birol, who is now the IEA’s Executive Director. Before IEA, he worked on European and Eurasian energy issues in Brussels and also spent ten years working in Eastern Europe, primarily in Ukraine. He studied at Oxford University and Johns Hopkins SAIS.

On Twitter: @tim_gould_

On the Web: http://www.iea.org

Geek rating: 7

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[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

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[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

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