Atlantic Council

The National Intelligence Council’s “Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World” report considers likely scenarios for nearly all strategic global issues, including nuclear proliferation, terrorism, and climate change.  Climate change in particular is an issue that we will be faced with on a daily basis two decades from now.

Oil prices have plummeted in recent weeks, hitting a 20-month low of $59 per barrel, a 60 percent drop-off from its summer high of $147.  One might reasonably think that this would be crippling to a country like Russia, which relies so heavily on energy exports to stake its claim to major power status.  The Troika Dialog team, though, argues that it's much more complicated than that.

The landmark pipeline deal recently signed between Russia and China connecting the Siberian oil fields with Daqing should send cold chills up Europeans’ spines.  It may very well mean they will be literally cold in the foreseeable future.

As the world gears up for the UN Climate Change extravaganza (UN Framework Convention on Climate Change or UNFCC) in Copenhagen in December 2009, achieving a serious accord to establish post-2012 commitments that could slow or halt global warming increasingly appears a mirage.

Since Russia’s August invasion and occupation of Georgia, the short and long term implications have been much debated.  Is Russia reasserting itself in an attempt to become the global power that its predecessor the USSR

The persistence of poverty and extreme deprivation in developing countries prevents the spread of freedom and democracy as certainly as any other factor. Starting points to alleviate that poverty are developing countries’ ability to obtain the clean energy and water supplies that are necessary to promote economic growth and public health. This paper attempts to create a new paradigm for U.S. foreign policy, taking advantage of the vast (as yet untapped) resources of the U.S. technical capabilities in our research institutions to better understand the cause and effect of energy-water-agriculture interdependencies on national and regional instabilities, as well as the potential for transformational technological impacts on future development and stability.

It may be the ultimate irony of our horrendous energy predicament. Amid all the talk and admonitions about “foreign oil” and alternative energy, it appears the Saudis and the other Persian Gulf oil and gas exporters are further along in preparing to diversify their economies for a post-petroleum world than the United States.

General James L. Jones, chairman of the Atlantic Council, was interviewed by Lyric Wallwork Winik for Parade magazine on energy policy.  The following appeared in the August 24 issue.

On May 13, 2008, the Atlantic Council of the U.S. and Asia Society Washington hosted a seminar on EU-U.S.-China Cooperation on Climate Change.

Because of their significant contribution to global demand for improved living standards, meaningful actions by the United States and China on transportation and energy will be important in any effort to reduce global consumption of traditional energy sources.