Showing 1 - 10 of 419
Big Oil sails on amid storm threat
News, Published on 07/05/2025
» Top oil and gas companies are watching the worsening global economic outlook with trepidation, but they currently appear to be doing little to correct course in the face of the approaching storm. The level of uncertainty in global energy markets has shot up in recent months due to US President Donald Trump's tariff flip-flops, stop-start negotiations over the Ukraine conflict, tightening sanctions on Iran, and growing signs of disagreement among Opec and other major producers.
Little action on cutting power bills
Editorial, Published on 06/04/2025
» On the surface, a pledge by the Paetongtarn Shinawatra government to cut electricity prices from 4.15 baht per kilowatt-hour to 3.99 baht for the next billing cycle starting May 1 seems like long-awaited good news.
A defining moment for energy security, prosperity
Oped, Published on 28/03/2025
» From March 12-13, heads of state, ministers of finance and energy, investors, civil-society groups, and energy-industry leaders convened in Barbados for the Sustainable Energy for All (SEforAll) Forum. The conference's theme -- Sustainable Energy for Equity, Security, and Prosperity -- captured an often underappreciated reality: the clean-energy transition is vital not only to protect the planet but also to enhance economic resilience and energy security in an uncertain global setting.
The way to lose an entire decade
Oped, Published on 19/03/2025
» The 2020s are shaping up to be a lost decade, at best, for economic growth. This will be particularly bad for emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs) in the short term, but it will leave us all worse off, not least by undermining the global fight against climate change. The parallels with the 1930s -- when the world also faced a major economic shock, intensifying protectionism, growing nationalism, and the weakening of multilateralism -- make the situation appear all the more ominous. Then, like now, geopolitics was king.
Tit-for-tat tariffs as Trump escalates trade war
News, Published on 08/03/2025
» US President Donald Trump delivered on his threat to hit Canada and Mexico with sweeping import levies and doubled an existing charge on China, spurring swift reprisals that plunged the world economy into a deepening trade war. Yesterday, Mr Trump backtracked and postponed Canada and Mexico tariffs for a month.
The post-Covid fiscal tightrope
Oped, Published on 26/02/2025
» As economies worldwide start to emerge from the inflation-fueled cost-of-living crisis that followed the Covid-19 pandemic, fiscal policymakers are confronting a sobering reality: they are not out of the woods yet.
The effects of Trump's Ukraine deal
News, Published on 24/02/2025
» At the end of World War I, John Maynard Keynes was part of the British delegation to the Paris Peace Conference, where the victorious Allies dictated the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers. He emerged from the conference distraught. As he subsequently wrote in The Economic Consequences of the Peace, delegates' focus on short-term political considerations, including the desire to "punish" Germany for its aggression, would come at the cost of long-term social and political stability in Europe. It is a warning worth remembering today.
Sun-powered schools are a smart move
Oped, Rapeepat Ingkasit, Published on 19/02/2025
» Thailand's rising electricity costs are not just a concern for businesses; they are placing a financial burden on schools. In 2023, a local business daily, Bangkok Biz, reported that many schools were struggling with high electricity liabilities.
Was DeepSeek-R1 release a Sputnik moment for AI?
News, Published on 07/02/2025
» After the release of DeepSeek-R1 on Jan 20 triggered a massive drop in chipmaker Nvidia's share price and sharp declines in various other tech companies' valuations, some declared this a "Sputnik moment" in the Sino-American race for supremacy in artificial intelligence. While America's AI industry arguably needed shaking up, the episode raises some difficult questions.
Time to decommodify electricity
Oped, Published on 05/02/2025
» The international community has long recognised the urgent need to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and shift to renewable energy, and in recent years many governments have pledged to reach net-zero greenhouse-gas emissions, albeit over extremely long timeframes. But they will never get there so long as they treat electricity, which is central to the clean-energy transition, like any other market good.