Environment and Energy

When it comes to climate change and its impact on U.S. Latinos, the facts usually tell a bleak story full of bad news and mounting threats. While there’s no question that climate impacts are real and growing, and that Latinos are on the front lines of those adverse impacts, the story doesn’t have to end […]

On December 9 2014, JMEPP Editor Zane Preston interviewed Dr. Abbas El-Mejren. Dr. Abbas El-Mejren is currently the Kuwait Foundation Visiting Scholar at the Middle East Initiative, within the Belfer Center at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Watch the video interview below to hear Dr. El-Mejren discuss economic development challenges and prospects for Kuwait and the broader Gulf […]

BY ADAM BANASIAK We usually find gas in new places with old ideas. Sometimes, also, we find gas in an old place with a new idea, but we seldom find much gas in an old place with an old idea. Several times in the past we have thought that we were running out of gas, […]

In this installment of “Inside the Middle East: Q&A,” Dr. Adnan Shihab-Eldin, Director General of the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences, discusses changes in the global energy market, security in the Gulf countries, and the advancement of science and technology efforts in Kuwait.  You can watch the interview, conducted by Sarath Ganji, senior […]

This is part one of a two-part series on Saudi Arabia’s fossil fuel subsidies. This post discusses existing problems with Saudi Arabia’s subsidies program. The governments of developing, oil-exporting countries tend to maintain domestic fossil fuel prices at levels significantly lower than the free-market prices. Selling fossil fuels at domestic prices below the market leads […]

BY SAMUEL STOLPER Like it or not, renewable portfolio standards (RPSs) are a major part of United States climate and energy policy. Thirty states and the District of Columbia have enacted RPSs, and seven more states have analogous voluntary (non-binding) programs[i]. RPSs have been active since the early 2000s, so some states have as much […]

BY JEFFREY M. VOTH The morning of 2 March 2013 could have started better for Americans. Although most did not wake up to Sonny and Cher singing “I Got You, Babe” as their Saturday morning alarm, it was hard to avoid turning on the television, opening the paper, or glancing at the latest news feed […]

Abstract: The Arabian Gulf region has the most prodigious energy reserves in the world. However, the region’s massive industrialization and expanding demography are also increasing energy consumption at unsustainable rates, leading to natural gas deficits across the region. This article argues that the pressures of economic development and industrial diversification are steadily eroding the comparative […]

Abstract: The Arab Spring provides a rare opportunity to examine the roles of natural resources and state structure in the face of popular discontent. While the Gulf monarchies have all weathered the events of 2011, the diverging fates of the two oil-producing republics in North Africa—Algeria and Libya—suggest that neither factor alone can account for […]

  Jon B. Alterman is director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Prior to joining CSIS in 2002, he served as a member of the policy planning staff at the U.S. Department of State and as a special assistant to the assistant secretary of state for Near […]

In 2009, a group of academics, policy makers, and industry professionals came together and created the Desertec Industrial Initiative (DII) and the DESERTEC Foundation with the goal of meeting 15% of Europe’s electricity needs and two thirds of the Middle East and North Africa’s electricity needs with renewable power generated in the deserts of northern […]