The year 2021 began with high hopes for climate action, as many members of the international community—including, once again, the US—rededicated themselves to the effort and looked to deploy resources accordingly. And there were certainly landmark achievements: the Global Methane Pledge was launched, the Paris Agreement rulebook was completed, and the private holders of $130 trillion in assets under management pledged their collective financial muscle to the fight against climate change, among other victories. But as global economic demand roared back from its pandemic-dampened level in 2020, energy supply failed to keep up, inflating hydrocarbon prices, driving countries back to dirty coal generation, and underscoring the challenges of the “transition” part of the energy transition. It became clear that countries will need to thread the needle between pushing for ambitious emissions reductions and keeping prices down and the lights on in the interim, all against an ever more precarious geopolitical backdrop.
With these considerations in mind, The Atlantic Council’s “The 2022 Global Energy Agenda” details a more pessimistic outlook on the promise of the energy transition, as respondents reckoned with concerns old and new.
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