Geopolitical Talks: Geopolitics and the Energy Transition. C

Energy and geopolitics have long been entangled, with major shifts in one driving major changes in the other. Meghan L. O’Sullivan will discuss how this interdependence has never been more relevant to the future of humanity than it is today.

In her keynote speech, the speaker will elaborate on the emergence of a feedback loop between the deteriorating geopolitical environment and the ongoing energy transition to a net-zero global economy. She will show how this feedback loop is both making the world more dangerous and the energy transition more difficult. O’Sullivan asks – and seeks to answer – how this downward spiral can be reversed for the benefit of both the climate and the emerging global order.

Meghan L. O’Sullivan is the Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at Harvard University’s Kennedy School and the Director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Dr. O’Sullivan’s scholarship is at the nexus of traditional disciplines, with particular expertise on how the energy transition and geopolitics intersect. O’Sullivan has served in multiple senior policymaking roles and has advised national security officials in both Republican and Democratic administrations. Dr. O’Sullivan is a member of U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s Foreign Policy Advisory Board. Between 2004 and 2007, she was special assistant to President George W. Bush and was Deputy National Security Advisor for Iraq and Afghanistan during the last two years of her tenure. O’Sullivan has been on public company and non-profit boards. She is a Senior Director at the strategic consulting firm Macro Advisory Partners and is the Chair of the North American Group of the Trilateral Commission.

Hosted by Ivan Krastev, IWM Permanent Fellow and Director of the Centre for Liberal Studies in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Geopolitical Talks is a series of public debates with foreign policy experts and former politicians, initiated by IWM Permanent Fellow Ivan Krastev in 2018.

In cooperation with Bundesministerium für Landesverteidigung (BMLV).