Telegraph Piece: There is no green ‘transition’ to renewable energy. China and India are playing us for fools

[Note: This story is also published at The Telegraph]

We’re constantly told nowadays that an “energy transition” is underway, from the fossil-fuel powered world of yesterday to the renewables-powered one of tomorrow. But is this actually happening? It’s a question on many minds these days, and one that comes with varying answers depending on who’s answering. 

For Daniel Yergin, Vice Chairman of S&P Global and author of best-selling books like The Prize and The New Map, the answer is complex and fraught with uncertainty, far more than policymakers in the western developed world would like. I was able to interview Yergin recently in the wake of the publication of a new study that is a joint project between S&P Global and the International Energy Forum (IEF). The study, titled “Shaping a Living Roadmap for Energy Transition,” assesses the status of what is referred to as the energy transition, and finds it has in fact evolved into a set of widely disparate transitions among nations in differing geographies and with differing states of economic and societal development.

“I think that what drove this study on energy transition is the sense that the last two years have demonstrated that it is more complicated and indeed more challenging than just drawing a scenario and putting numbers on it and saying this is how it would happen,” Yergin says, adding that priorities of national energy security have risen to increased prominence in the wake of Russia’s ongoing war on Ukraine.