Energy

Joseph Nye advises skepticism toward claims that the pandemic changes everything. China won't benefit, and the United States will remain preeminent.

Henry Kissinger warns that many existing domestic and international institutions that have helped govern the past decades will not survive the Covid-19 crisis. He is surely correct.

Given the ravages of the coronavirus crisis, the future of Europe cannot be one of permanent division between its northern and southern states.

Nicholas Burns speaks to BBC World about how global politics will change as a result of the COVID-19 crisis.

The world has never before confronted a crisis quite like COVID-19, one that has simultaneously tested both the limits of public health systems everywhere and the ability of countries to work together on a shared challenge. But it is in just such moments of crisis that, under all prior U.S. presidents since World War II, the institutions of U.S. foreign policy mobilize for leadership. They call nations to action. 

Often, crises are moments of truth. Some leaders prove in these moments to be up to the stakes, others collapse. The forces behind decisions, interests and ideologies become clearer. President Tump's solemn address to the American nation on Wednesday evening on the coronavirus crisis deserves a special mention. On that day, Donald Trump was preparing to put an end to the world economy as we knew it.

European capitals are taking a variety of steps individually to try to beat back the outbreak. But few countries are working together to combat the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. 

To accelerate the global transition to a low-carbon economy, all energy systems and sectors must be actively decarbonized. While hydrogen has been a staple in the energy and chemical industries for decades, renewable hydrogen is drawing increased attention today as a versatile and sustainable energy carrier with the potential to play an important piece in the carbon-free energy puzzle. Countries around the world are piloting new projects and policies, yet adopting hydrogen at scale will require innovating along the value chains; scaling technologies while significantly reducing costs; deploying enabling infrastructure; and defining appropriate national and international policies and market structures.

What are the general principles of how renewable hydrogen may reshape the structure of global energy markets? What are the likely geopolitical consequences such changes would cause? A deeper understanding of these nascent dynamics will allow policy makers and corporate investors to better navigate the challenges and maximize the opportunities that decarbonization will bring, without falling into the inefficient behaviors of the past.

Growing concern around climate change has ignited recent interest in carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) technologies and generated a series of studies on its global market potential.

This study group will explore the role of the private sector in evolving energy systems, and how corporations might change in a climate constrained world.