Love Is in the Air: Vladimir Putin, the World's Greenest Politician?

As this post is being written, many eyes are still pointing in disbelief at the US-China deal on climate change that presidents Barack Obama and Xi Jinping closed on November 12. In the deal, Mr. Xi promised that his country's GHG emissions would "peak around 2030," while Mr. Obama pledged a...

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Cutting Emissions in India: A Look at the Construction Sector

From the first week of August until the last week of September, I was given the opportunity to work as an intern for the World Resources Institute (WRI), a Washington DC-based think tank, on a greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction program in Mumbai, India. WRI is an organization whose mission...

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Published Article - Activists and Extractive Industries: An Alliance Against Social Development?

Recently an article that I submitted to the United Nations Institute for Research and Development (UNRISD), was selected as a winner in the Young Scholar Think Piece series (YSTP). You can read the article here: http://www.unrisd.org/ystp-tengler. ...

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Why Coal is Worse Than Nuclear

The anti-nuclear lobby in some countries can be very strong: so strong, in fact, that merely the fear of it taking action can shape a country's domestic politics. Take Germany as an example: although the political attitude towards nuclear power in Germany had been shifting since the first Red-Green...

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Energy: Empowering the Consumer? A talk by MP Laura Sandys

On May 1st the OUCE hosted a talk by MP Laura Sandys (Conservative, South Thanet) with an elaborately long title: "From the other end of the telescope: mixed energy generation, plug & play grid - empowered consumers". Laura Sandys with me In her talk, the MP argued that...

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The Carbon Crunch: A book review

Last week Dr. Dieter Helm, a well-respected economist at the University of Oxford, agreed to meet with me regarding my masters thesis. To come prepared to the meeting, I read much of his work, including his most recent book, The Carbon Crunch: How We're Getting Climate Change Wrong - and How...

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We Are the Children of the (Shale) Revolution - Why We Should Embrace the Shale

Although still unknown to many, the technologies of hydraulic fracturing (also known as fracking) and directional drilling are perhaps the two most important inventions of the recent years. In combination, they are bound to have an unprecedented impact on the world’s distribution of wealth and power...

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