War in Ukraine: can energy transition and security reinforce each other?

The Eurasian Climate Brief

The Eurasian Climate Brief is a podcast dedicated to climate issues in the region stretching from Eastern Europe to Russia down to the Caucasus and Central Asia.

In this episode, we're speaking with one of the world’s top Russian energy experts, Thane Gustafson. How has the war in Ukraine has reshaped the global energy trade? And, could it help accelerate the energy transition?

Thane is a professor in Russian politics and the politics of Government in the Soviet Union at Georgetown University in Washington. A former professor at Harvard University, he is the author of many books, amongst them, The Bridge: Natural Gas in a Redivided Europe and Wheel of Fortune: The Battle for Oil and Power in Russia, as well as most recently Klimat: Russia in the Age of Climate Change.

This episode is made by:

•Natalie Sauer, a French British environmental journalist and English-language editor for The Conversation. She is also a MA student in Russian and Post-Soviet Politics at the School of Eastern European and Slavonic Studies, University College London. A former reporter for Climate Home News, her words have also appeared in international media such as Le Monde Diplomatique, Politico Europe, Open Democracy, Euractiv and the Heinrich Böll Foundation.

•Boris Schneider, European Journalism Project Manager at Clean Energy Wire CLEW. Prior he has worked as a specialist on Eastern European climate and energy topics, amongst others for navos Public Dialogue Consultants and the German Economic Team. He graduated from the Free University of Berlin with a M. Sc. in Economics and is interested in the intersection of political economy and ecology in Eurasia.

•Angelina Davydova, an environmental journalist from Russia. Angelina has been writing about climate change in the region for Russian and international media and attending UN climate summits since 2008. She also teaches environmental journalism and environmental and climate policy and communication in a number of universities and regularly organises training for journalists from Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Caucasus on environmental and climate reporting. Angelina left Russia in March 2022 and is now a fellow of the journalistic programme Media in Cooperation and Transition (MICT) in Berlin.