The green transition and fractures in US politics

invitation only · SEMINAR · 16.01.2024 15:00 - 16:30

invitation only

The United States has identified the need to divest from traditional hydrocarbons as a source of energy and invest in low-carbon alternatives, with consequences for both domestic and foreign policy. Part of this investment includes spurring domestic development, production, and incentivizing businesses and citizens alike to participate in the transition. Pursuing this course, in effect by subsidizing the transition with hundreds of billions of dollars, the US has encountered friction abroad and at home. Abroad, differences have emerged as low-carbon technology has become a new frontier of competition with not only potential adversaries but also allies and partners, including the European Union. At home, the politicization of the “green” transition has allowed the energy issue to be hijacked by identity politics and deepening divisions among regions and political parties. This seminar considers the low-carbon trajectory and policies of the United States, and the effects that such policies have within broader trends, such as competition between states and domestic political economic issues.

This event is a part of a research series on the characteristics of the US role in global politics organized by the Center on US Politics and Power at FIIA.

Speakers

Cordelia Buchanan Ponczek

Research Fellow, FIIA

Cordelia Buchanan Ponczek is a Clarendon Scholar and doctoral candidate at the University of Oxford, where she is researching the political economy of multi-stakeholder extraction projects. She previously earned an MPhil, with distinction, in Russian and East European Studies at Oxford. Cordelia has held researcher positions with the US Institute of Peace, the Center for European Policy Analysis, and the Polish Institute of International Affairs. Her areas of expertise include the political economy of climate policy, energy resource projects, including low-carbon and rare earth element extraction, and geoeconomics, specifically trade, regulation, and supply chain dependencies.

Chair

Charly Salonius-Pasternak

Leading Researcher, FIIA

Charly Salonius-Pasternak is a Leading Researcher at FIIA and leads the work of the Center on US Politics and Power (CUSPP). His work at FIIA focuses on international security issues, especially Nordic and transatlantic security (including NATO), as well as U.S. foreign and defence policy. Recently he has focused on Finnish-Swedish defence cooperation and the evolution of US and NATO alliance reassurance approaches in light of the changed regional security situation. In 2017, he was a visiting research fellow at the Changing Character of War programme at Pembroke College (Oxford University), where he studied the hybridization of warfare and the impact of the Information Age on the character of war.