Geopolitics in the age of the energy transition

Our latest ‘Critical Conversation’ podcast features Helen Thompson, Professor of Political Economy at the University of Cambridge, on growing divisions between the West and China, how our dependence on natural resources shapes international affairs, and what the energy transition means for geopolitical risk.

Professor Helen Thompson is a leading thinker on the geopolitics of resources and has been at Cambridge since 1994. Helen’s current research concentrates on the political economy of energy and the long history of the democratic, economic and geopolitical disruptions in the 21st century. Her books include: ‘Oil and the Western Economic Crisis’, ‘China and the Mortgaging of America’, and most recently ‘Disorder: Hard Times in the 21st Century’. This last book was shortlisted for the 2022 FT Business Book of the Year award.

This exclusive discussion, recorded on 5th April 2023, was moderated by Daniel Litvin, Founder of Critical Resource and Senior Advisor to the Executive Committee of ERM. Please note, as with our other podcast interviewees, the views expressed by Professor Thompson do not necessarily reflect the views either of Critical Resource or ERM.

The theme of the podcast is growing geopolitical risk facing the world and global companies. Among the questions covered: How should senior executives of big companies navigate an increasingly unstable and fragmented international system, riven by division between the West and China and other great powers? How will our ongoing dependence on different sorts of natural resources – whether fossil fuels or metals key to the energy transition – shape international affairs in the years ahead? And what does the energy transition mean for geopolitical risk as well as political stability within western countries?