This week, Jane Nakano (CSIS) talks with Representative Elaine Luria about energy and climate priorities for Representative Luria’s district. Representative Luria was first elected to represent Virginia’s Second Congressional District in 2018. Her district includes many coastal communities as well as 8 military installations. Previously, she served two decades in the Navy, retiring with the rank of Commander. Jane talks with Representative Luria about how her background as nuclear-trained officer played a role in her move to become a member of Congress as well as some of the key issues and policies she is advancing not only for her district but for country at large.

This week, Bloomberg energy and commodity reporters Javier Blas and Jack Farchy join Ben Cahill (CSIS) for a discussion of their new book, The World for Sale: Money, Power and the Traders Who Barter the Earth’s Resources. Their discussion focuses on the influential role that commodity traders have played in global oil markets over the past four decades and looks ahead to how the commodities business may need to respond to new demands of the global energy economy.

As the energy transition in India accelerates, how do decisionmakers ensure that the transition is a just and equitable transition? Neha Sharma (CIF and JTI), Ajay Mathur (International Solar Alliance), Srestha Banerjee (iForest), and Mike Ward (CIF) look at the underlying drivers of India’s energy transitions, and key considerations for creating a just transition, including the need for fairness and equity, geographic disparities, lack of social mobility, labor policy, and energy access.

This week’s episode is part of the Just Transitions Initiative, a partnership of the CSIS Energy Program and the Climate Investment Funds. For more, visit the Just Transition Initiative.

Neha Sharma is Evaluation and Learning Specialist at the Climate Investment Funds and a core team member of the Just Transitions Initiative

Ajay Mathur is Director General–designate for the International Solar Alliance, and formerly the Director General at the Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in India

Srestha Banerjee is Program Head for Climate Justice and Natural Resource Management at iForest

Mike Ward is Senior Sustainability Specialist at the Climate Investment Funds

This week, Dr. Emily Grubert, a professor at Georgia Tech, joins Stephen Naimoli (CSIS) to look at the recent winter storm in Texas that caused massive grid failures. Emily and Stephen consider what happened in Texas and why the grid there failed to handle the severe storm. They examine the tools and policies that decisionmakers can use to help the grid avoid problems like this and to prepare for worsening impacts as a result of climate change in the future.

For more, read Stephen’s recent examiner: https://www.csis.org/analysis/extreme-weather-tests-grid-resilience-across-much-united-states

And see Emily's bio for more of her work: https://spp.gatech.edu/people/person/emily-grubert

This week, Justin Wu (BloombergNEF) and Lachlan Carey (CSIS) take a tour of all things climate and energy related across Asia. They start with the outlook for U.S.-China relations on climate under the Biden Administration, consider the recent carbon neutral targets announced by Japan and Korea, move to the Covid recovery efforts and clean energy agenda in Vietnam, Indonesia, and India, and finally take a look at Australia and its technology-forward climate policy.

Ken Koyama (IEEJ) and Jane Nakano (CSIS Energy) look at recent energy and climate announcements from Japan. In October, Japan announced a plan to reach carbon neutrality by 2050. The climate pledge was followed by the launch of the Green Growth Strategy for Carbon Neutrality by 2050, in December. Ken and Jane look at what it will take to reach that target and its implications for Japan’s energy sector.

For more, read Japan Seeks Carbon Neutrality by 2050

Sarah Ladislaw (CSIS) and Kevin Book (ClearView Energy Partners) look at the U.S. climate and energy agenda. Kevin and Sarah reflect on the outcome of the U.S. elections and the recent Senate race in Georgia, the divided nature of U.S. politics, the riots at the U.S. Capital, and how it all may affect the Administration’s energy and climate agenda.

This week our guest is Mark Viviano, a Managing Partner & Portfolio Manager with Kimmeridge. Kimmeridge is a private equity firm investing in low-cost unconventional oil and gas assets in the U.S., and is also an activist investor pushing for company reforms. Mark has analyzed companies in the energy sector for more than 15 years. Ben Cahill (CSIS) talks with Mark about reforming the shale sector and responding to ESG pressure, the role of activist investors, and what to expect in oil and gas markets in 2021.

For more, read http://kimmeridge.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Governance_Paper_111620.pdf and http://kimmeridge.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Preparing-the-EP-Sector-for-the-Energy-Transition-A-New-Business-Model.pdf

This week’s Energy 360 is part of our Energy Futures Forum. This annual project looks at trends and their impacts on the energy sector over the next ten years. This year’s overarching theme was Covid-19 and how it has had immediate impacts on the energy sector and what we might see unfold in near and medium term. Sarah Ladislaw (CSIS) talks with the three EFF discussion moderators to get their key takeaways and insights: Nikos Tsafos (CSIS) on the transportation sector, Ethan Zindler (BloombergNEF) on the electric power sector, and Taiya Smith (Garnet Strategies) on China.

This week Energy 360 highlights our project on Energy Transition Strategies, which examines how emerging economies are balancing economic growth while reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. We looked at three different places: Vietnam, Ethiopia, and the Indian state of Gujarat. In each of these 3 podcasts, Nikos Tsafos and Lachlan Carey talk with an expert about that state’s development and low-carbon transition pathways within the major sectors of electricity generation and access, transport, and industry.

In this final episode of the mini-series, we look at Ethiopia’s pathway. Our guest is Easwaran Narassimhan, a research fellow at the Climate Policy Lab at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University.

For more, read Energy Transition Strategies: Ethiopia’s Low-Carbon Development Pathway