Policy Dispatch: The FORESIGHT podcast on the policies underpinning the energy transition

Download our award-winning app and enjoy access to all exclusive features. Click here to access on Apple or Android. “This isn’t a new concept. This isn’t a revolutionary, ground-breaking concept. It’s just something that is kind of a repackaging of a market that’s not doing what it’s supposed to.”     The United Kingdom has finally wrapped up a long-lasting review of its electricity mar...

Download our award-winning app and enjoy access to all exclusive features. Click here to access on Apple or Android “We need to drive electrification in the EU. We are badly lagging behind China but we have done the hard work over the last 20 years to make really rapid electrification possible.”     Electrification offers a viable path towards decarbonisation. If processes can be switche...

Download our award-winning app and enjoy access to all exclusive features. Click here to access on Apple or Android. “I like to say that the German storage market doesn’t work because of policy but despite policy sometimes! Lars Stephan,” Senior Manager Policy and Market Development, Fluence.     Germany’s energy storage market has been up and running for a decade and is just now startin...

Download our award-winning app and enjoy access to all exclusive features. Click here to access on Apple or Android. Central and Eastern Europe needs to upgrade its building stock to plug leaks and reduce energy consumption. Some of the challenges the region faces are similar to those in other countries, some are more specific.  Rules and regulations are slowly but surely being adopted in thi...

Download our award-winning app and enjoy access to all exclusive features. Click here to access on Apple or Android. Europe’s energy market is a marvel of the modern world, connecting more than 600 million people together. It has helped increase energy security and is boosting the rollout of green and cheap power.  But the job is not done yet. More cross-border and regional cooperation is nee...

Download our award-winning app and enjoy access to all exclusive features. Click here to access on Apple or Android. The shipping sector is aiming to go net-zero by 2050. But to hit that lofty target, a number of policies will have to be implemented in order to get cleaner-burning fuels into circulation.  It requires a complete renewal of the industry’s way of doing business but progress is b...

Download our award-winning app and enjoy access to all exclusive features. Click here to access on Apple or Android. Decarbonisation objectives rely heavily on offshore wind providing cheap green electricity to power homes, infrastructure and businesses.   Turbines are being built out at sea at pace but more effort is needed in order to hit Europe’s lofty goals. A recent bumpy patch of u...

Download our award-winning app and enjoy access to all exclusive features. Click here to access on Apple or Android. Most of Finland’s electricity is sourced from carbon neutral energy sources as the country aims to go completely net-zero by 2035. So great are its decarbonisation ambitions that Finland wants to be carbon negative by 2050.  Helena Sarén, head of the Zero Carbon Future Mission...

Download our award-winning app and enjoy access to all exclusive features. Click here to access on Apple or Android. Buildings are at the heart of the energy transition. They soak up a lot of energy and spew out a lot of emissions. Improving the existing stock and making sure new builds are as green as possible is crucial to our global decarbonisation journey.  Across the continent of Africa,...

Download our award-winning app and enjoy access to all exclusive features. Click here to access on Apple or Android. The energy transition is becoming more and more complex, new technologies are coming online, old ways of sourcing power are becoming obsolete and geopolitics are tearing up the rulebook.  That is why the ability to plan ahead, work through all the options, find the opportunitie...

Download our award-winning app and enjoy access to all exclusive features. Click here to access on Apple or Android. Not all hydrogen is created equally and not all proposed uses for hydrogen deserve the time of day. Potential applications for the fuel are gradually becoming narrower and more targeted as policymakers and industry get serious about using it.  Helen Spence-Jackson, executive di...

Download our award-winning app and enjoy access to all exclusive features. Click here to access on Apple or Android. Artificial intelligence could make or break the energy transition. The massive data centres that provide AI’s computational power will need to increase in number, which will result in a spike in energy demand.  But the benefits that AI promises to bring to the energy transition...

Download our award-winning app and enjoy access to all exclusive features. Click here to access on Apple or Android. Heating our homes and cooling our casas is a vital part of everyday life that is often taken for granted. We expect heat and, increasingly, demand cooling.  But the energy needs and carbon footprint of heating and cooling are huge. Both are expected to grow if strong policies a...

Download our award-winning app and enjoy access to all exclusive features. Click here to access on Apple or Android. The 54 countries that make up Africa face some of the same energy and climate challenges as nations in the Americas, Europe and Asia, but in many cases the hurdles and obstacles are more varied and more difficult to overcome.  Climate breakdown will hit African communities hard...

Download our award-winning app and enjoy access to all exclusive features. Click here to access on Apple or Android. More than half of the world’s total supply of renewable energy is provided by bioenergy, a fact often forgotten in energy transition debates. Its contribution to sectors like heating is, in particular, an integral part of the energy mix.  How does the sector manage the fact tha...

Download our award-winning app and enjoy access to all exclusive features. Click here to access on Apple or Android. Waste-to-energy power generation in Europe is not insignificant. More than 5 gigawatts of capacity is installed and there are plans in some countries to add more.  The negative impact on the environment, climate and human health is well-documented: the emissions are often worse...

Download our award-winning app and enjoy access to all exclusive features. Click here to access on Apple or Android. Emission reductions are the primary way to address climate change. But if the international community is not able to slash greenhouse gases quickly enough or if leftover emissions persist, then the climate may still need a helping hand.  That is where geoengineering may eventua...

Download our award-winning app and enjoy access to all exclusive features. Click here to access on Apple or Android. Removing CO2 from the atmosphere is set to be big business in the coming years. Johan Börje joins the show to explain what is needed to scale carbon removals up and what challenges need to be overcome.     Carbon removals will be crucial in the fight to combat climate chan...

Download our award-winning app and enjoy access to all exclusive features. Click here to access on Apple or Android. Transport’s electrification is gathering pace but it’s not quick enough for some. 2024 has been branded a disappointing year for EV sales and some have even suggested that this is the beginning of a dip.  But is this true? Or is 2024 just a small bump in the road? And where do...

Download our award-winning app and enjoy access to all exclusive features. Click here to access on Apple or Android. Look out of a plane window when you are flying over the sea or peer at the horizon from a ferry these days and chances are good that you will see giant wind turbine blades looming out of the deep.  Offshore wind is generating more and more of our clean electricity, as governmen...

Download our award-winning app and enjoy access to all exclusive features. Click here to access on Apple or Android. Global climate action is not restricted to protesting in the streets. Legal courts are increasingly playing a bigger role in the fight for a decarbonised world.   As cases against companies and even governments are becoming more commonplace, who are the main figures leadin...

Download our award-winning app and enjoy access to all exclusive features. Click here to access on Apple or Android. Renewables are going from strength to strength in many European countries. Everyone is making some sort of progress towards their targets but if current trends continue, the EU will fall short of its benchmarks. That is why there are a number of policy options available to national...

Farming emissions are not falling at the same rate that they are in sectors like power generation or industry. Complex factors like land-use change and livestock emissions make agriculture’s carbon footprint a difficult beast to tame. Factors like food production, geopolitics and strong cultural ties almost make an already complex decarbonisation challenge even more difficult. Carbon markets have...

Clean technologies are the indispensable hardware of the energy transition. Whether its wind turbines, grid components or futuristic fusion power, without clean tech, we won’t get anywhere.  The United Kingdom has proven itself to be an attractive place to develop and scale up clean technologies but the sector has begun to lose momentum and stagnate. A general election on 4th July could well...

Parts of the world that have introduced some form of carbon pricing have been able to disconnect their emissions from economic growth, thanks largely to the polluter-pays principle.  But there is somewhat of a disconnect between carbon markets and the most important part of the energy transition: consumers. So is it possible to democratise emissions trading? To involve more people in carbon p...