The Geopolitics of the Energy Transition

Join us for a roundtable with the State Department’s Bureau of Energy Resources (ENR). ENR leads the State Department's efforts to promote energy security for the United States and its allies, increase energy access around the world, and accelerate the global clean energy transition.

SIS professor Judith Shapiro, Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Environment, Development, & Health, and Geoffrey R. Pyatt, Assistant Secretary, ENR, will share their perspective on key energy issues including the massive shifts in the energy landscape amid Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine, the ethics of critical minerals mining and extraction, and the new technologies poised to transform the global energy market.

Bios:

Geoffrey R. Pyatt, a career member of the Foreign Service, class of Career Minister, was sworn in as Assistant Secretary for Energy Resources on September 19, 2022. Ambassador Pyatt served as U.S. Ambassador to Greece from 2016 to 2022 and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine from 2013 to 2016. Among other recognitions, he received the State Department’s Robert Frasure Memorial Award in recognition of his leadership of the U.S. response to Russia’s invasion of Crimea and eastern Ukraine in 2014. Previously, Ambassador Pyatt was Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs from 2010-2013. He was Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Mission to the International Organizations in Vienna, Austria from 2007 to 2010. He also served three times at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, India, as Deputy Chief of Mission from 2006 to 2007, Political Counselor from 2002 to 2006, and Political Officer from 1992 to 1994. Ambassador Pyatt was Economic Officer at the U.S. Consulate General in Hong Kong from 1999 to 2002 and Principal Officer at the U.S. Consulate General in Lahore, Pakistan from 1997 to 1999. Since joining the Foreign Service in 1989, he has also served on the National Security Council staff, on the staff of Deputy Secretary Strobe Talbott and at the U.S. Embassy in Honduras. Prior to joining the Foreign Service, he worked with The Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based think tank that brings together leading citizens of the Americas. Ambassador Pyatt grew up in La Jolla, California and holds a Master’s degree in International Relations from Yale and B.A. in Political Science from the University of California, Irvine.

Judith Shapiro is the Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Environment, Development, & Health. She also directs the Dual Degree in Natural Resources and Sustainable Development (NRSD) with University for Peace in Costa Rica. Her new book, China Goes Green: Coercive Environmentalism for a Troubled Planet, with Yifei Li, was published in 2020 by Polity. She is also the author of China's Environmental Challenges (Polity 2012, Second Edition 2016), Mao's War against Nature (Cambridge 2001) and the co-author of Son of the Revolution (Knopf 1983) and other books on China. Her courses include SIS 660 Environment and Politics, SIS 106 China from the Inside and SIS 352 Environmental Politics of Asia.