Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR contributor Lavender Au and Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curate the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. Carbon neutrality is rarely discussed within China. At the U.N. General Assembly last week, however, Xi Jinping made a high-profile pledge that China’s emissions would peak before 2030 and that the country would go carbon neutral by 2060. Ultimately, the pledge fits into a fundamental domestic objective in Beijing: energy security. Debate over energy policy in China centers around the country’s resilience against supply chain uncertainties. This year, for the first time, two Chinese ministries [...]
French President Emmanuel Macron has clearly decided to up the ante in a standoff with Turkey in the Eastern Mediterranean, where France is backing Greece and Cyprus in their dispute with Ankara over natural gas reserves and maritime boundaries. First, Macron ordered a temporary reinforcement of French aerial and naval assets to the Eastern Mediterranean in mid-August, in response to Turkish ships resuming controversial gas exploration activities south of Cyprus. Then, he went as far as to frame his actions as a “red line policy” in order to show President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that he meant business. Although France’s military [...]
The past year has been a perfect storm for America’s shale gas companies, on both the domestic and international fronts. Record-setting levels of American gas production and consumption in 2019 masked the fact that the industry was already under siege, as years of insufficient returns pushed investors away from financing new drilling and exploration. Meanwhile, newly commissioned projects aimed at exporting liquified natural gas, or LNG, faced headwinds on international markets due to a global supply glut. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated these issues, as it further depressed domestic and international demand for natural gas. The collapse in oil prices as [...]
