CERAWeek Podcast with Atul Arya

The United States will inaugurate a president in January 2021 who will steer American foreign policy through a world of rising tensions and instability. The U.S.-China relationship has become the epicenter of global rivalry while the Middle East contends with entrenched conflicts and volatility. Is a new set of organizing principles necessary to mitigate conflicts, placate tensions, and establish greater cooperation in America's strategic relationships? What are the different approaches that can be expected between a Trump and Biden presidency? In this CERAWeek Conversation, experts in energy, geopolitics, Asia, and the Middle East examine America's place in the world and the disruptions shaping its foreign policy.

Turkey is positioned as an important nexus for international trade and commerce and regional energy dynamics. In this CERAWeek Conversation H.E. Alparslan Bayraktar, Deputy Minister of Energy & Natural Resources of Turkey examines the country's agenda to bolster its energy security and strategies to attract foreign investment in energy. Deputy Minister Bayraktar discusses the significance of a recent major gas find, efforts to boost power sector competitiveness, and Turkey's role in the energy transition.

Strategies for Net Zero carbon emissions have emerged as key roadmaps of the energy transition and for achieving climate reduction targets. International energy companies have charted the course through more diversified portfolios and investments in lower carbon energy sources. In this CERAWeek Conversation, Josu Jon Imaz, Chief Executive of Repsol, discusses his company's role in the energy transition and the opportunities that lie ahead. He makes the financial case for Net Zero and shares insights on hydrogen technologies, nature-based solutions, and the coming competition as oil and gas investors shift further into renewable energy.

With over half of US states adopting renewable energy goals, and recent events in the West highlighting resiliency challenges, the need for long-duration energy storage is becoming more critical. Matching abundant, low-cost, renewable generation supply with demand requires significant deployment of energy storage, including multi-day and seasonal storage. Janice Lin, Founder and CEO of Strategen, and Geoff Brown, President of Powin Energy, discuss the deployment of "market acceptable solutions" which requires a look beyond current technologies and methods, as well as innovation in regulatory and policy circles to allow real breakthrough solutions.

How does a smaller country face the challenges of climate change and the pandemic while undergoing great change? In this CERAWeek Conversation with IHS Markit Senior Vice President Carlos Pascual, René Ortíz , Minister of Energy and Non-Renewable Natural Resources of Ecuador discusses how the government aided in the response to COVID-19. He recounts how private investment is being sought to bolster and expand all sectors of energy in Ecuador and how coalitions are important to political and business success.

Explore the models of infrastructure resilience against the most powerful force of all: Nature. Eric Silagy, President & Chief Executive Officer, Florida Power & Light Company, and Sean C. Strawbridge, Chief Executive Officer, Port of Corpus Christi discuss the preparedness, crisis management & recovery strategies to protect & preserve critical energy assets when nature strikes.

With more than half of humanity living in urban areas, the future of cities is the future of the climate agenda. Officials from Aberdeen & Cape Town share the journey of their cities towards net zero carbon emissions. Barney Crockett, Lord Provost of Aberdeen City Council, and Phindile Maxiti, Mayoral Committee Member for Energy and Climate Change, City of Cape Town, explore various decarbonization initiatives across sectors and explain how cities are driving change.

Digital twinning allows asset managers to conduct real-time analysis under various conditions by integrating and synchronizing a multitude of network components onto a digital platform. John Hague, Executive Vice President, Operations, Aspen Technology, explains the rapid growth in demand for the technology, how companies are using digital replicas in their operations today, and the next frontiers of digital twin technology.

H.E. Dr. Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, Group CEO, ADNOC, and UAE Minister of Industry & Advanced Technology, shares insights on the current oil market dynamics and the UAE's vision for its future economy. In this CERAWeek Conversation with IHS Markit Vice Chairman Daniel Yergin, H.E. Dr. Al Jaber discusses the UAE's investments to add value to its domestic industries, its initiatives to advance next-generation technologies, and the competitive edge that the Emirates holds in the low-carbon future.

Bill Vass, AWS Vice President of Engineering, examines the cutting-edge data science technologies that are transforming the energy industry – the cloud, artificial intelligence, machine learning – and explores trends for the future as both tech and energy continue to rapidly evolve.

Ecopetrol has been a key pillar of Colombia's growth and development into a modern, robust, and dynamic economy. Amid the changing landscape from COVID-19, the market downturn, and the energy transition, Chief Executive Felipe Bayón shares how Ecopetrol is positioning itself for the future. He explores the financial resilience, diversified portfolio, technology focus, and inclusive development of unconventionals that will continue to strengthen both company and country.

Distributed energy resources (DERs) are proliferating in power grids around the world as customers seek greater control over the cost and environmental footprint of their electricity use. In this CERAWeek Conversation, power industry leaders examine the technologies and business models that are driving the market for DERs. Lior Handelsman, Founder & VP Marketing, Product Strategy, SolarEdge Technologies, and Surya Panditi, President & CEO, Enel X, look at the issues of rapid uptake, digitalization, resiliency, and cybersecurity that are transforming the way customers use and generate electricity.

How will major power players respond to a future that demands greater energy but lower emissions? In this CERAWeek Conversation industry executives discuss the path to decarbonize the power sector. Ralph Izzo, Chairman & CEO, Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG), and H.E. Mohamed Al Hammadi, Chief Executive Officer, Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC), address the debate over carbon pricing, concerns about nuclear, the gains from energy efficiency and the impact of COVID-19 on regional consumption patterns.

Upstream oil and gas faces unprecedented headwinds: the COVID market downturn, the role of hydrocarbons in the energy transition, and investor demands for stronger returns. In this CERAWeek Conversation, industry executives make the case for upstream investment in the current environment. Timothy E. Perry, Managing Director and Global Co-Head of Oil and Gas, Credit Suisse, Adif Zulkifli, Executive Vice President and CEO, Upstream, PETRONAS, and Tomás García Blanco, Executive Managing Director of Exploration & Production, Repsol assess industry trends and the pathways that can allow the upstream business to prosper going forward.

Can the energy transition be accelerated? Executives from the world's leading oil and gas companies explore the issue in this CERAWeek Conversation. Ahmad Al Khowaiter, Chief Technology Officer, Saudi Aramco, and Shankar Krishnamoorthy, Executive Vice President, ENGIE, examine the technologies and decarbonization strategies that can have the greatest impact in lowering emissions and achieving a low carbon future.

Follow the money in the world of energy and investing in this CERAWeek Conversation. Musabbeh Al Kaabi, Chief Executive, Petroleum & Petrochemicals, Mubadala Investment Company, and Marcel van Poecke, Head of Carlyle International Energy Fund, Carlyle International Energy Partners, share inside perspective on how private equity and sovereign wealth funds are strategizing for the future. They assess the market adjustments to energy investments, new opportunities to deploy capital, and the changing criteria for valuing energy assets.

Analysts and industry investors discuss the COVID-19 shock and other major forces that are emerging for next generation biofuels, with a focus on Europe and the Americas. Shailesh Sahay, Senior Regulatory Counsel, POET, Fernanda Delgado, Professor and Researcher, FGV Energia and Christoph Berg, Managing Director, Agribusiness Intelligence, IHS Markit, examine advanced technologies, carbon intensity improvements, and policy support affecting next generation biofuels.

Jason Zander, Executive Vice President of Microsoft, speaks with IHS Markit Vice Chairman Daniel Yergin about the future of the digital world: 5G, quantum computing, industrial IoT, and the digital transformations and cloud services that are changing the business of energy.

Experts from industry look at the role of CCUS in meeting long-term emission targets. Cindy Yeilding, Senior Vice President, BP America, Jon Christopher Knudsen, Vice President, Global Business Development, Aker Solutions, and Scott Willis, Vice President, Commercial Development, Occidental Petroleum, examine the current state of CCUS technologies, prospects for decarbonizing heavy-emitting sectors, and the impact of carbon pricing on accelerating CCUS uptake.

Sunita Narain, Director General of the Centre for Science and Environment, a public interest research organization based in New Delhi, connects the crises of climate change, COVID-19 and global poverty and examines a new economic agenda that emphasizes the environment and the well-being of society.

Shell Chief Executive Ben van Beurden speaks with IHS Markit Vice Chairman Daniel Yergin about the financial adjustments the company made due to the market shock and examines Shell's ambition to be net carbon zero by 2050. He explores future business areas in a lower carbon economy and explains how Shell translates its climate goals to investors and society.

Canada is the world's fourth largest oil producer and is committed to achieving net carbon zero emissions by 2050. In a CERAWeek Conversation with IHS Markit Senior Vice President Carlos Pascual, Canada's Minister of Natural Resources Hon. Seamus O'Regan examines how the two come together into a cohesive energy policy. He explores the effects of the pandemic on Canada's energy transition, the role of government in supporting industry, and the path forward for critical infrastructure projects.

Houston is one of the largest, most vibrant and diverse cities in the United States, and the home of CERAWeek by IHS Markit for nearly four decades. In this CERAWeek Conversation, Houston's Mayor Sylvester Turner speaks with IHS Markit Vice Chairman Daniel Yergin about the transformative events of the past six months on the city: COVID-19 and an agenda for racial equity and inclusion. Mayor Turner also discusses Houston's future as the world's energy capital and shares lessons for leadership.

The cloud and the technologies that power it have become synonymous with the modern economy, enabling connectivity, e-commerce, and digitalization. In this CERAWeek Conversation with IHS Markit Vice Chairman Daniel Yergin, Andy Jassy, Chief Executive of Amazon Web Services, explains how the cloud is continually changing the nature of business and explores breakthroughs in energy industry operations and COVID-19 research that cloud services can enable. He discusses Amazon's ambitious climate targets and describes how its culture of innovators and builders positions the company still in the early stages of a dynamically growing venture.

Leading experts in energy and technology discuss the next wave of digital transformation across industry. They take stock of COVID-19's accelerating effect on digitalization in energy and explore the gains to be further realized in strategic collaborations, value chain efficiency, and business integration. Join Jud Jacobs, IHS Markit Executive Director, Upstream, Technology, and Energy as he leads a discussion with Ahmed Hashmi, Chief Digital and Technology Officer, Upstream, BP plc. and Peter Terwiesch, President Industrial Automation & Member of the Group Executive Committee, ABB Ltd.

David M. Rubenstein, Co-Founder & Co-Executive Chairman of The Carlyle Group, discusses with IHS Markit Vice Chairman Daniel Yergin his views on the global economy, U.S.-China relations, prospects for a COVID-19 vaccine, and the key attributes of leadership.

OPEC Secretary General Mohammad Sanusi Barkindo shares inside perspective on the historic months of 2020 for the organization. In a CERAWeek Conversation with IHS Markit Senior Vice President Carlos Pascual, Barkindo examines the international dialogue that led to global supply cuts, assures of OPEC's cooperation with U.S. shale producers, and explores the opportunities for improved governance structures in energy, climate change, and geopolitics post-COVID.

While the story of the past 50 years has been of the digital revolution, innovations in the 21st Century will be defined by the convergence of biology and engineering, according to Susan Hockfield, President Emerita of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In a CERAWeek Conversation with author and Tulane University professor of history Walter Isaacson, Hockfield explores how the nexus of biology and engineering and innovations modeled after the genius of nature can lead to advances in life sciences, energy, and the human condition.

Saudi Aramco President & CEO Amin H. Nasser shares insights with IHS Markit Vice Chairman Daniel Yergin on the first six months as a publicly listed company, preparation and responses to COVID-19, operationalizing the rapid ramp-up in oil production, and lessons learned from the U.S. shale experience. With an eye to the future, Nasser explores the priority initiatives the company is investing in and Aramco's role in the energy transition.

In this episode, former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers discusses the tough public policy issues of our time: opening our economies safely, structuring a just recovery, and redefining international engagement to support equitable growth.

In this episode, Mark Carney, Adviser to Prime Minister, COP 26; U.N. Special Envoy, Climate & Finance discusses the global economy and the energy transition with IHS Markit Chairman and CEO Lance Uggla. Carney reflects on the response by governments to the COVID-19 financial shock, the trajectory of economies towards net zero emissions and approaches that investors should take to prepare for a low carbon future.