Energy - Climate
In the face of the climate emergency and geopolitical confrontations, how can we reconcile security of supply, competitiveness, accessibility, decarbonization and acceptability? What policies are needed?
Related Subjects
Japan’s Africa policy: Back to basics in times of crisis
Addressing remotely the 8th Japan-Africa TICAD Summit held in Tunis between August 27th and 28th, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida pledged $30 billion in public and private contributions to the African continent over the course of the next three years. This is a quite a remarkable move, as no specific amount was mentioned by the late Prime Minister, Shinzō Abe, at the previous TICAD 7 in 2019. By doing so, Japan aims at demonstrating that its commitment to Africa is solid and sustainable: its traditional approach towards a human-centered development is more relevant than ever in these times of crisis (between the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and the adverse effects of climate change), and clearly marks a difference from China’s practices.
Building Bridges over the Blue Pacific. Beyond Marine Protected Areas – A Europe-Oceania Cooperation
The “new scramble for the Pacific” is characterized by a race for the control of maritime space and resources, oscillating between ocean grabbing and ocean commoning.
EDF’s problems pile up as full nationalisation looms
French supplier of nuclear energy is struggling with plant shutdowns, build problems and skills shortages.
The German Industrial Power in Danger: The Double Shock of Energy Transition and Geopolitical Risk
The German manufacturing industry at the heart of the German economic activity has been confronted in the past years with conjunctural shocks, which question its existence on the German territory: the energy transition which hinders it in the short term to resort to fossile energy from Germany and nuclear energy; a questioning of fossile energy imports from Russia which keeps production sites of fossile energy and nuclear energy in Germany; the currently small capacity of renewable energy to satisfy the important energy needs of the manufacturing industry and the putting into place of alternatives to the importation of energy resources.
Five Years after China’s Plastic Import Ban: Have Europeans Taken Responsibility?
After the 2017 Chinese waste import ban, the international and European Union (EU) legislative framework on waste exports has been revised.
The Impact of the War in Ukraine on the Energy Sector
The outbreak of war in Ukraine dealt a shock to energy markets.
Moving towards a metallic age: building industry resilience through a strategic storage mechanism for Rare Earth Metals
The decarbonisation of our economies, along with the challenges of strengthening the resilience of industrial value chains, reindustrialisation, notably through low-carbon and digital technologies, and the end of a period of cheap oil and gas, are accelerating the advent of an era of increased dependence on metals in a context of new and growing competition for access to resources.
Solar power shines through after a slow start in Africa
The case for the renewable energy source is becoming clearer on the ‘sun continent’
The EU’s Renewables Expansion Challenge Towards 2030: Mobilizing for a Mission Almost Impossible
Only eight years are left to expand by almost three times the current total installed wind and solar energy capacity in the European Union (EU) in adding around 600 gigawatts (GW), and so reach the highly-ambitious 2030 targets. This requires a mobilization whose scale is immense – amidst times of unprecedented crises and uncertainties.
Delhi to Paris: A strategic partnership
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to France on May 4 is his fifth since 2015, and the 10th such high-level bilateral visit.
The Next Wave of Global LNG Investment Is Coming
With an annual growth of 10% in 2017 to 290 million tons (Mt) and 8.3% in the first half of 2018, Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) demand is rising faster than expected. Accounting for 44% of global demand growth in 2017, China is the main driver of the growth as the government has made natural gas a key policy choice to reduce air pollution and restructure its high-carbon energy mix.
Japan’s Hydrogen Strategy and Its Economic and Geopolitical Implications
With the Basic Hydrogen Strategy (hereafter, the Strategy) released on December 26, 2017, Japan reiterated its commitment to pioneer the world’s first “Hydrogen Society”. The Strategy primarily aims to achieve the cost parity of hydrogen with competing fuels, such as gasoline in transport and Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) in power generation.
Xi Jinping’s Institutional Reforms: Environment over Energy?
During its two sessions (lianghui) in March 2018, the National People’s Congress (NPC) announced China’s most important institutional reforms in the last 30 years. These changes occurred right after Xi Jinping consolidated his power and at a time when stakeholders working in the energy field were expecting more clarity on policy orientations.
Romania: a key player in the Energy Union for the security of natural gas supply?
In 2015, Maroš Šefcovic, Vice President of the European Commission for Energy Union, was writing about Romania as being «at a crossroads - both in strategic and physical terms.
Decarbonizing Germany’s Power Sector: Ending Coal with a Carbon Floor Price?
Germany has a long tradition of climate policy programmes with ambitious greenhouse gas emission reduction targets and comprehensive climate and energy policy packages.
This target-driven policy approach is, however, increasingly facing challenges due to the lack of progress on greenhouse gas emission reductions in key sectors, i.e. the power, the transport and the building sector.
Electricity storage in a redesigned market
Storage technologies have the potential to significantly support the EU’s electricity system, bringing a number of flexibility services. There are numerous electric energy storage (EES) technologies, tackling different magnitudes in terms of quantity of energy, ramp-up time, duration of discharge, costs, and lifetime.
Challenge of Making Smart Cities in India
The Indian government has launched the Smart Cities Mission in June 2015 with the aim of providing a better quality of life to the citizens in 100 cities of the country. This paper describes the main features of the Mission and attempts to explain the challenges in the way forward.
The Last-ditch Attempt to Build the Energy Union
Nearly one year after the presentation of the Energy Union project, while 2016 promises to be a critical year for its implementation, what is the status of this flagship project of the Juncker Commission?
Shifting Political Economy of Russian Oil and Gas
Dramatic changes in the Russian energy strategy and energy-based political alliances are to be expected due to the evolution of the domestic oil and gas market resulting from the economic crisis and sanctions linked to the annexation of Crimea.
Innovation: a New Mode of Climate Action
A range of announcements of energy and climate coalitions have been made during COP21. Beyond their important diplomatic objectives, these new forms of coalitions bring scientists and industry leaders towards new long term visions of energy consumption modes.
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Related centers and programs
Center for Energy & Climate
Ifri's Energy and Climate Center carries out activities and research on the geopolitical and geoeconomic issues of energy transitions such as energy security, competitiveness, control of value chains, and acceptability. Specialized in the study of European energy/climate policies as well as energy markets in Europe and around the world, its work also focuses on the energy and climate strategies of major powers such as the United States, China or India. It offers recognized expertise, enriched by international collaborations and events, particularly in Paris and Brussels.