LSE IDEAS proposes to examine the ongoing impact of the energy transition through a series of events aimed at unpacking key features of this emerging world in the making and the role that the energy transition has in that process.
Meet the Chair and Speakers
Professor Sophia Kalantzakos is Global Distinguished Professor in Environmental Studies and Public Policy at New York University Abu Dhabi. Her research centers on the geopolitics of critical minerals, the transition to a net zero future, and the fourth industrial revolution. Her work examines how resource competition in an era of fraught geopolitics has tilted the balance toward securitized assessments of global interdependence. Moreover, she examines China’s global aspirations manifested through the Belt and Road Initiative and ecological civilization, Europe’s reckoning with a seismic push against both its normative and economic power, and the US’s re-evaluation of its leadership role in the global order. Kalantzakos’ publications include Critical Minerals, the Climate Crisis and the Tech-Imperium, editor (Cham, Switzerland: Springer 2023), China and the Geopolitics of Rare Earths (Oxford University Press, 2018; rev.2021) and The EU, US, and China Tackling Climate Change: Policies and Alliances for the Anthropocene (Routledge, 2017). Kalantzakos is the Founding Head of eARThumanities and the Geopolitics and Ecology of Himalayan Water research initiatives at NYUAD. She was a Fellow at the Rachel Carson Center at LMU, a Fung Fellow at Princeton, and RIHST fellow at Caltech and the Huntington. Kalantzakos’ new project addresses the geopolitics of food security in the Anthropocene.
Dr Philip Andrews-Speed is a Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies’ China Energy Programme. He has more than 40 years’ experience in the field of energy and resources, starting his career as a mineral and petroleum exploration geologist before moving into the academic field of energy and resource governance. His research has been directed at the governance and regulation of energy and natural resources with a focus on Asia, especially China. His book, with Sufang Zhang, China as a Global Clean Energy Champion: Lifting the Veil (Palgrave, 2019) received the 2024 Award for Best International Energy Economics Book from the International Association for Energy Economics. The current focus of his research is on China’s role in clean energy supply chains.
Professor Chris Alden teaches International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) where he is Deputy Head of the Department (PhD and Research). He is also Director of LSE IDEAS. He is a Research Associate with South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA).
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