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Leslie Chats With Brenda Shaffer on Whether Some Climate Policies Made the World More Vulnerable to Energy Crises
1 Plays4 seconds ago
In this episode of the Energy Vista Podcast, Leslie Palti-Guzman sits down with energy scholar and foreign policy expert Brenda Shaffer to discuss the energy policy implications of the Iran crisis and disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz.
Brenda argues that policymakers continue to draw the wrong lessons from energy crises. The conversation explores whether some climate policies have weakened energy security. Leslie and Brenda exchange on the role of natural gas in modern economies, Europe's energy challenges, Africa's missed energy investment opportunities, China's growing influence over clean-energy supply chains, and the future of electrification.
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Transcript
Introduction to Energy Vista Podcast
00:00:07
lpaltiguzman
Welcome to Energy Vista, a podcast on energy issues where we make experts great again and contribute actively to the public debate and policymaking around commodities, the geopolitics of energy and trade.
00:00:20
lpaltiguzman
I'm your host, Leslie Palti-Guzman. It's June 3rd, 2026, and time for a new Energy Vista episode.
Introduction to Brenda Schaffer
00:00:30
lpaltiguzman
Today, my guest is Brenda Schaffer. Brenda is an international energy and foreign policy specialist focusing on international energy policies, natural gas trade, and foreign policy, Caspian energy, Iranian energy exports, energy security policy, European and energy security, critical energy energy infrastructure protection,
00:00:54
lpaltiguzman
and EastMed Energy, among many other topics. She is a faculty member at the Energy Academy Group of the US Naval Postgraduate School, and she is also a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council for Global Energy Center in Washington, DC.
00:01:10
lpaltiguzman
Hi, Brenda. i'm very delighted to have you as a guest on the Energy Vista podcast.
00:01:15
Brenda Shaffer
Thank you so much.
Interpreting the Iran Energy Crisis
00:01:17
lpaltiguzman
So a major question right now for experts, analysts like us, is how policymakers and governments are going to interpret the current Iran energy crisis.
00:01:31
lpaltiguzman
And with all the disruptions that we've seen around the Strait of Hormuz and how it's impacted the flow of fossil cell fuels, notably. So how those governments and companies are going to move forward? And do you think we they are going to take the right lessons from this crisis?
00:01:51
lpaltiguzman
Or are we going to make some mistakes that we have already done in the past? And you've read you've been reading recently a provocative Wall Street op-ed and in the Wall Street Journal, arguing that renewable energy gives us a crisis and that Western climate policies have weakened energy security and may have given a leverage to Iran. So explain to us where where you come from on this.
Lessons from Past Energy Crises
00:02:18
Brenda Shaffer
Right. So you ask if we're going to learn lessons and and the right lessons um from this current global oil and LNG crisis.
00:02:25
lpaltiguzman
you
00:02:27
Brenda Shaffer
And I can look to an energy crisis that emerged in and February 2022 and and following Russia's russia's andva second invasion of of Ukraine.
00:02:41
Brenda Shaffer
And i can already see that then we learned the wrong lessons, we discussed the wrong lessons, and even even you know in any possible lessons that could have been learned were not implemented.
00:02:52
Brenda Shaffer
So no, I doubt. um First thing, I think we tend to overemphasize geopolitical events, meaning that the the the the assumption needs to be in all of our, whether it's companies or governments or international institutions that that are interested in energy security, The assumption needs to be that there's always going to be some kind of disruptions.
00:03:14
Brenda Shaffer
They could be that could be geological. They could be they could be of but extreme weather. They could be geo geopolitical.
00:03:24
Brenda Shaffer
They could be economic, right? So like just let's say we had something like ah COVID economic shutdowns and suddenly you have a huge you know huge drop in demand for energy.
00:03:32
lpaltiguzman
Mm-hmm.
00:03:34
Brenda Shaffer
These kind of disruptions, they're not black swans, they're not unexpected, they're actually part of you know what we do in in energy security. um But unfortunately, because of a variety of different political interests, instead of saying, hey, yes, why we're having a crisis, for instance, in winter 2022 is because we didn't prepare our market for for disruptions. Instead, it's easier to say, oh, this was Putin's gas war, or this is an oil price
00:04:06
Brenda Shaffer
excel because of because of Putin's invasion of Ukraine and and the and the Western sanctions, right? But the reality is that um we have these energy crises because we don't prepare our markets for disruptions. So again, disruptions are are the are are what we should, of course, anticipate. And the failure is a lack of preparation of you know global energy energy markets. but um And no, i don't I don't think we'll draw the right conclusions because there's so many political interests.
00:04:40
Brenda Shaffer
um You know, most of the international system, it's easier to, you know, blame it on Trump and Israel than to look at their own policies.
00:04:41
lpaltiguzman
you
00:04:47
Brenda Shaffer
And, you know, the same thing that, that that you know, saying that the especially European energy crisis in 2022. We had one already in 2020, 2021, simply because Europeans did not invest enough in in their natural gas in preparing their markets.
00:05:03
Brenda Shaffer
And, you know, they already had price spikes in those two winters. The third one after the Ukrainian invasion you know was just a continuation of ah of of a pattern. So...
00:05:13
lpaltiguzman
So yeah, so talking about Europe, actually, even France recently decided to set up a new electrification task force. And we've seen comments from different governments emphasizing the idea of accelerating electrification, whether it's going to be in Europe and in Asia.
Misconceptions about Renewable Energy
00:05:33
lpaltiguzman
Do you think it's a good idea? And do you think that rejecting, like putting the blame on fossil fuels basically is not the right conclusion?
00:05:41
Brenda Shaffer
No, yeah, of course. i mean, because it's easy. People that anyways want to promote an agenda of of renewable energy, they say, ah, here's a problem here with fossil fuels. And and and and they try to say that this you know this is a justification where we need um to go over to renewable energy.
00:05:57
Brenda Shaffer
So I would say a couple of things on that. One, if you think it's rough having Hormuz or having Putin, try being 100 percent dependent on Chinese supply lines.
00:06:08
Brenda Shaffer
I think that would be a much bigger geopolitical threat. Two, today's renewables operate on ah on a baseload of ah of ah primarily fossil fuels.
00:06:19
Brenda Shaffer
So
00:06:20
lpaltiguzman
This is like a key point, I think, because many people, when we say electrification, they don't wonder where the electricity comes from, which energy energy source.
00:06:27
Brenda Shaffer
Right. They often think that somehow electricity itself is is an energy source. Right. But today's renewables, mainly wind, solar, hydropower, they need a baseload fuel. They need, of course, you know this, but for our audience, you know they need they need a constant source of energy to keep an electricity system ah running. So basically, when you use renewable energy, it's not that you replace fossil fuels, you run it, you know, you run it in in a sense in parallel or in tandem with with fossil fuels. mainly in the West, natural gas. So it doesn't really, um additional additional renewable energy by today's technologies doesn't doesn't replace renewable it doesn't replace fossil fuels, especially natural gas. It it works well.
00:07:12
Brenda Shaffer
ah with with them. and that And third, you know, we don't really have, ah you can throw all the money in the world at wind and solar, all your policy time, um you still cannot support modern economies by, you know, by wind and solar. So it's, it's, um basically misleading the public when you say we're in an energy transition, you know, where we're somehow we're using, you know, less fossil fuels.
00:07:40
Brenda Shaffer
I think, I don't know how much people in our audience knows, but today the um fossil fuels provide 87% of global energy.
00:07:52
Brenda Shaffer
And during
00:07:52
lpaltiguzman
of the primary energy mix, right? Primary energy.
00:07:54
Brenda Shaffer
Yeah, and good global primary consumption. And and in the 1970s, after the 1973 energy crisis, 73, 74, when we started the sort of public ah promotion of renewable energy subsidies, policy promotion, we were about 84%. So with all these trillions of dollars invested in in in renewable energy, We're using less renewable energy today than we used when we started this policy journey.
00:08:25
lpaltiguzman
Very interesting. I think it's key. I think the belief that renewable could replace all fossil fuels was was misleading. And also this idea that emerging economies could leapfrog directly from fossil fuel to a clean energy transition, decarbonized energy, like energy mix, right?
Impact of Halting Fossil Fuel Finance in Africa
00:08:47
Brenda Shaffer
Right. No, I think this idea of leapfrog, I mean, it's actually quite cruel to the the nations and the peoples that you've been asking to make make this leap. Because one one, no, it's never happened. I mean, first thing, the assumption is that somehow renewable energy is more, is progress compared to fossil fuels. That if you know if you ask most people in Africa, the fact that global energy Global institutions like the G7 World Bank, EU have stopped public finance for fossil fuels.
00:09:22
Brenda Shaffer
This is not help them get more access to electricity. This is this has actually been we've had the first um back walking in energy access in electricity access in Africa. in in decades. And we have sort of a system, I think it's even quite cruel because now the World Bank, International Energy Agency, they count electricity access as even partial electricity access. So some guy gets a solar lantern, you know solar power, that can power maybe a lantern, his phone, but that doesn't live give him clean cooking. This doesn't power a tractor. This doesn't produce fertilizer. you know So sort of the the the the main benefits of ah of a
00:10:06
Brenda Shaffer
of electricity access, this partial electricity access, doesn't give ah to people. So yeah, I think it's quite cool how we we have sort of a different standards, you know, that sort of ah partial electricity access in Africa now somehow considered electricity access.
00:10:24
lpaltiguzman
So because of this these policies in international financing for energy projects and infrastructure, do you think there were opportunities lost, like in Africa, in terms of major infrastructure projects, export or import projects?
00:10:39
Brenda Shaffer
For sure, and it even connects, Leslie, to your first question about you know about the current crisis in in Hormuz. So for decades, you know and you've you've worked on gas projects in so many different parts of the world as part of your background. For decades, a big emphasis in in in the institutions and the countries that were thinking about energy security was diversification, right? So we shouldn't concentrate everything in the Middle East. We shouldn't concentrate everything in Russia. And for you know for a variety of reasons, but you know we're seeing right now um you know the danger of of of, let's say, so much um so much dependence on a you know certain geographic location, like but behind the streets of Straits of Hormuz.
00:11:25
Brenda Shaffer
um And so for years, you know projects like Caspian and energy, Eastern Mediterranean energy, energy in Africa, they were invested in from a commercial point of view, but they also had policy support and public finance in order to diversify our global energy supplies.
Diversification and Investment in Fossil Fuels
00:11:42
lpaltiguzman
Mm-hmm.
00:11:42
Brenda Shaffer
We'll fast forward to about 2018, 2019, and suddenly this thing, actually a third topic we've just mentioned, this idea that we're in this energy transition and we don't need fossil fuels anymore, and you have the International Energy Agency saying in 2021, there should be no more investments and in in in fossil fuels.
00:12:02
Brenda Shaffer
suddenly most international governments, for sure the United States, for sure the EU, stopped thinking about diversification. And Africa really got hurt, well, double hurt. One, there wasn't the policy in global policy impetus to develop their resources. But two, as we said, in starting 2019, global institutions like the World Bank stop start start to stop all the public finance. And so what you've had is that in Africa, when you had a large string of discoveries in the 2010s, most of the biggest gas discoveries of the decade were were in Africa, most of it ah sitting in the ground and very little of it developed for the domestic market.
00:12:46
lpaltiguzman
Are you thinking about Mozambique or other countries?
00:12:48
Brenda Shaffer
And in other places, Tanzania, yeah, like ah ah basically all the almost all the gas resources except for except for Mozambique.
00:12:48
lpaltiguzman
Yeah.
00:13:00
Brenda Shaffer
And um I think if they if we would have developed those resources, can you imagine today, fast forward to the crisis today, um would it be no crisis?
00:13:11
Brenda Shaffer
No. Would it be a lot less crisis if we had a bit, you know, 10% more LNG in the market that wasn't dependent on the straits? If we had Africa basically self-sufficient with gas and and oil and not you know not dependent on those resources, Africa producing its own fertilizer from its own natural gas, we would be in it you know, again, it wouldn't solve the whole crisis, but we would be in a different, you know, a different crisis.
00:13:35
lpaltiguzman
Yeah.
00:13:36
Brenda Shaffer
Or...
00:13:36
lpaltiguzman
I mean, part of it is also being able to anticipate demand and because there are so many different scenarios possible, depending on which technologies is advancing or not. Like for example, now everybody's talking about nuclear again, potentially.
00:13:50
lpaltiguzman
as a medium term, long term solution for increased electrification in industrialized nations, especially the one that would host data centers and so on. And so that could cut some of the demand for fossil fuels, potentially.
Energy Security and Scenario Planning
00:14:03
lpaltiguzman
So how do we make sure that we plan for different scenarios knowing that that might be some white elephants in terms of infrastructure projects, or maybe some of them, some export projects will not be fully utilized, but they are needed for security of supply and they are needed for optionality and also for emerging markets to, you know, for their electricity access.
00:14:27
Brenda Shaffer
Right. And that's part of the second part of your question is part of the problem. So commercial decisions you know will continue to be made. And and and they the market usually does a great a great job at at it. The fact that actually today we can we can have the disruption in Hormuz and, you know, and we're not seeing one hundred and fifty dollar, two hundred dollar oil um you know and but and and and lights going out anywhere actually shows that how much we've improved in general and how and how the market can respond to these. to these various disruptions, but um the the global energy security side is missing. So you have this, I mean, if you look during the, I mean, for EU for sure, you know, like they they sit next to so many different gas sources that if they just would have given um ah either a long-term contract
00:15:17
Brenda Shaffer
or public finance, it would have, you know, let's say ah third and fourth stages of Azerbaijan gas into Europe. They could have East Med gas. They could have ah more Algerian gas. You know, if if if they just would have there would have been, ah you know, a concrete commitment or or or public public finance. United States, if you look during the Biden you know biden period, um the last year he stopped new LNG exports. If you look at the national security strategy, national security doctrine under under Biden, you know everything about fossil fuels is negative. and And this is at the time when the U.S. is the largest producer of oil and natural gas in the in the world. So for for ah ah for a ah ah we've had for a long period, um nobody thinking about, or at least in the West, nobody thinking about global energy security, i mean, of the leading governments.
00:16:15
Brenda Shaffer
And as I said, World Bank was not still is not giving loans for for fossil fuels. So the source of energy that most people use, the World Bank isn't giving resources.
00:16:27
Brenda Shaffer
International Energy Agency, you know, I don't i don't accept if in 2021 you should say there's no new investments in in fossil fuels. And now you're saying, hey, how do we get more investments in fossil fuels? I don't know what what they're going to say in the next...
00:16:40
Brenda Shaffer
know the next the the then the next round ah as well, but you have to be able to anticipate these problems, not to talk about, you know, not just to respond to these problems. So um we really don't have many, and many captains steering and steering any ships for this global energy security.
00:17:01
lpaltiguzman
Yeah. I mean, one of the reasons why there was so much dogma and ideology around renewables is also because there was this idea that it would reduce emissions, right? And that we have this problem of global warming that we need to solve also.
00:17:18
lpaltiguzman
ah But we see a country like Germany now that emits the most CO2 emissions in Europe because they have ideologically after the great Fukushima disaster, that's potentially one of the my mistakes that you have in mind, they close and phase out nuclear energy.
00:17:35
Brenda Shaffer
Right. Right.
00:17:37
lpaltiguzman
ji But in turn, they have turned to coal um and lignite. ah to power their industry and their electricity. um They also have made huge investments in LNG g infrastructure to import more natural gas after the Ukraine war.
00:17:56
lpaltiguzman
um So it's much more mixed as a result in terms of their carbon footprint. How do you think we should think about those different priorities?
Europe's Energy Policies and Industrial Competitiveness
00:18:07
lpaltiguzman
And if we take the example of Europe, they need to remain competitive Some of them will rearm, which means more industrialization, which means more energy usage.
00:18:17
lpaltiguzman
Some of them you know want to remain clean as a priority. um And then we have energy security. Is it possible to combine all this and manage to have you know ah smart policymaking around all those different priorities that sometimes conflict with one another?
00:18:35
Brenda Shaffer
Okay, so a lot a lot to and unpack there.
00:18:36
lpaltiguzman
yeah
00:18:39
Brenda Shaffer
First thing, before Europe thinks about increasing industrialization, i need I think they need to stop about how do they stop de-industrialization. I mean, there's there's no there's no way that the u k Germany, you know, most other players in and Europe can think about developing ah serious defense industries while while they have very expensive and and and ah an increasingly and unreliable electricity.
00:19:06
Brenda Shaffer
I mean, you just cannot be a manufacturing power, whether it's for military or for civilian uses, when you have expensive electricity. Let's recall how many businesses have moved from Mexico into the United States, right, because the biggest input into manufacturing industry is not labor, but it's energy.
00:19:24
Brenda Shaffer
So cheap energy and the oversight of the border brought businesses you know from Mexico to the United States, cheaper manufacturing.
00:19:28
lpaltiguzman
Thank you.
00:19:31
Brenda Shaffer
And how many how many businesses have crossed the pond as as ah as as European and British energy prices have gone up? and companies have moved to cheaper energy and in in in the United States.
00:19:44
Brenda Shaffer
So so ah you have to have cheap and reliable or affordable and reliable electricity in order to have a manufacturing base and certainly to have a defense ah defense base.
00:19:57
Brenda Shaffer
the... in terms of in terms of the um climate policies. I mean, I think a lot of us have to ask a question. I'm doing in this in the current book that I'm writing and researching right now. Why suddenly the world became so negative on natural gas?
00:20:16
Brenda Shaffer
I mean, for for years in our profession, coal switching to natural gas was part of our public policy, right? Where you can convert from from coal to natural gas, you're gonna lower air pollution, you're gonna lower carbon carbon emissions. Suddenly around 2018, 2019, methane any explanations,
00:20:37
Brenda Shaffer
becomes the new devil ah without a lot without any new science any any explanations
00:20:44
lpaltiguzman
Russian propaganda?
00:20:46
Brenda Shaffer
I actually, I would, I would actually blame it on China this time because I think when they realized they couldn't frack, you know, at the beginning, I think all over the world, ah when, when, when, uh,
00:20:46
lpaltiguzman
Okay.
00:20:58
Brenda Shaffer
Fracking was starting when the United States was starting to emerge as a natural gas, a major natural gas producer. You know, all over the world, countries were looking at their capacity for for fracking. And China, think, was optimistic when they finally realized that the kind of geology they have there and water shortages, that they're not really going to be able to be a fracker.
00:21:16
Brenda Shaffer
Suddenly they were facing the United States. It was not just a scientific power, not just a military power, but now taking its crown as a you know a manufacturing power once it has clean cheap energy.
00:21:28
Brenda Shaffer
Right, right.
00:21:29
lpaltiguzman
Just on this, I think also at the time where Europe was, you know, France especially was trying to find shale gas potentially. and There were many protests anti-shale financed by Russia also because Russia wanted to keep a stronghold in Europe with Gazprom and its pipelines.
00:21:43
Brenda Shaffer
Yeah. ray
00:21:48
Brenda Shaffer
Right. Like even like the parliament of Bulgaria, parliament of Ukraine blocked fracking from an environmental perspective. Right. Like not countries that are really well known. So I hope sorry to friends in Bulgaria and Ukraine, but not well known for their environmental protection. But suddenly, you know, they they they banned ah fra you know fracking in their in their countries. um So.
00:22:10
Brenda Shaffer
So you see you see suddenly the whole, you know, all the emphasis of the environmental movements is on ah preventing use of natural gas, production of natural gas.
00:22:21
Brenda Shaffer
Natural gas, even if you believe methane was a serious, ah had serious climate, long-term climate impact, um ah ah natural gas only emits from production and use of the world 4% of global methane emissions.
00:22:38
Brenda Shaffer
So why would you start with something that's so essential to life in the West, to prosperity, to you know base it basic living, where your only real alternative to that is a nuclear, which is expensive for for most, too expensive for most countries and too long-term, or coal, which obviously has other you know pollution problems and and emissions emissions problems. Why would you attack the use of natural gas um when when you really don't have any alternative for your baseload for electricity. And if you were really so concerned about methane emissions, if it really was this this huge danger, as we've heard from so many environmental organizations like Rocky Mountain and Institute that was promoting the banning of banning of a gas
00:23:29
Brenda Shaffer
Susan consuming appliances in the in the United States. If it was so dangerous. Why don't we start, for instance, with Chinese rice, you know, rice is 10% of global methane emissions.
00:23:40
Brenda Shaffer
Susan If that if really methane was so dangerous. Maybe we should start with how how they produce rice and in China and and and and most of Asia. Now.
00:23:49
lpaltiguzman
I had heard about the cows. I had never heard about b rice.
00:23:51
Brenda Shaffer
Rice. Just stop rice. So I know this sounds a bit ah ridiculous, right? Well, how can you expect people to stop producing and consuming rice? And I actually don't expect them. Just like I don't expect Europeans or Americans to stop using natural gas because that would be you know ridiculous, ridiculous too. So this whole idea that we should, um you know, we had methane taxes in the United States, you have in the EU, you don't know, no public finance for for natural gas, difficulty to to for companies to to to engage in long-term contracts for natural gas. that
00:24:27
Brenda Shaffer
the The idea that we should stop using natural gas, it either is Chinese motivated or from this ideology of sort of zero you know deindustrialization that we should you know we shouldn't use any fossil fuels.
Strategic Autonomy and Import Dependency
00:24:40
Brenda Shaffer
It doesn't matter what their climate impact is or pollution or anything, but it's really about an idea that we shouldn't be industrialized. societies or it's a you know probably a combination of of the two so um
00:24:56
lpaltiguzman
And then maybe, you know, like you mentioned the environmental component of it. and but The other idea to promote electrification and maybe the anti-gas position is also driven by this idea that countries would become more strategic autonomic, like have a greater strategic autonomy if they reduce their import dependency on fossil fuel.
00:25:21
lpaltiguzman
And that if they... you know, produce at home their energy, whether it's renewable or nuclear or geothermal or other that will create for them, you know, greater energy security.
00:25:34
Brenda Shaffer
So first thing, we should be fuel neutral. In a place where, let's say a place like Norway, where they have really ample hydropower or Iceland, geothermal.
00:25:46
Brenda Shaffer
So sure, maybe in these locations to have a great percentage of your electricity on renewable energy makes a lot of sense. But then when you try to run in industrial,
00:25:57
lpaltiguzman
Thank
00:26:01
Brenda Shaffer
New York City, you know, on on today's renewable, you know, that's that's that's not a you know, when you cut off access to natural gas, even in, you know, and from from Pennsylvania and in into New York. that you know that isn't that isn't a practical ah you know practical solution. So we should be fuel neutral. where And of course, to diversify, a combination of ah renewables and fossil fuels and nuclear, and you know again, depending the fuel mix depending on the place, but of course, diversification makes sense. But this idea that renewables are local, i would i would actually challenge that because again, the hardware is mostly from China.
00:26:38
Brenda Shaffer
It's even, you know we could even open up a whole I mean, the even the hardware, it's not like one time from China, but because so many components of the renewable energy system, especially the inverters from solar and wind to the grid, are produced in China and communicating with China and and it can be controlled by China, right? so So they're really not local. And of course, you know, everything like a wind tower, it needs so much, you know, oil as a lubricant, you know,
00:27:08
Brenda Shaffer
As we said, solar and wind work on a base load, usually of natural gas, natural gas, coal or or nuclear.
00:27:14
lpaltiguzman
Yeah.
00:27:17
Brenda Shaffer
Nuclear certainly isn't isn't ah local. You know, if you need the the to receive the the the fuel and to and to ah and to ah relate, you know, store the spent fuel and in ah in a foreign country.
00:27:31
Brenda Shaffer
But but even nuclear, you know, looking like from a national security perspective, Recently, Taiwan closed down its nuclear energy capacity. They've just added now a ah carbon tax on their you know on their industry. But at the same time, they're asking the United States, if we're in a crisis with China, you know we want U.S. convoys for natural gas. I say, you can't you can't shut down your nuclear which relatively, at least it would give you, let's say a year, you know, until you need it to, to receive a, you know, fuel supplies or maybe, maybe longer depending on their storage. ah You can't close down your nuclear and then say, but please help us, ah you know, get, get natural gas. So, so ah um I think, you know, yeah, even nuclear isn't, it isn't being so many countries for, for, Like like you said in your introduction, I mean, Japan is not shut down nuclear because of Fukushima, but Germany shut down nuclear because of Fukushima.
00:28:30
Brenda Shaffer
Taiwan, to a certain you know to a certain extent, motivated by that. um Our policies are not really that rational.
00:28:38
lpaltiguzman
Yeah, I would say it's about timing potentially because now we we see that South Bank just announced, I think more than $50 billion to be potentially invested in France for data centers because they are attracted into the nuclear energy. energy Like France is still deriving about 70% of its electricity from nuclear.
00:28:56
Brenda Shaffer
Yeah.
00:28:57
lpaltiguzman
It's an asset now for some countries to have nuclear energy as a reliable base load. um i wanted to come back because you mentioned several times China.
00:29:08
lpaltiguzman
And there is a tendency now to oppose the US-led system that some call the petrostates versus the Chinese-led system of electrostates. And I think it's much more complicated than that because in the US, there are many also, I mean, drivers for growing electricity and a big mix of different energies, all the above energies. And same in China, I don't think they have,
00:29:34
lpaltiguzman
um given up at all on fossil fuels and on the contrary, they combine all of them. So how do you think about those frameworks? And um is there a an attractiveness right now to follow the Chinese modern globally?
China's Influence in Global Energy Narrative
00:29:49
Brenda Shaffer
So yeah, I think it's basically very sophisticated, in fact, a very sophisticated propaganda that works on you know sort of the baseload of anti-Americanism that you know that exists anyways, actually more in the West than in the than in the non non-Western ah countries and you know China successfully you know taps into that. So think about it. If you look, you know go to the web page of most environmental movements, climate movements, and an even International Energy Agency, right?
00:30:19
Brenda Shaffer
Who is the darling, who is the green leader? It's China, right? It's like very clear on their China page, on their main summaries, their main summaries are main reports, right? China that uses more coal than all other consumers of coal in the world together, the largest producer of coal, has extreme pollution of its water, air and and solar. ah It produces like half of the world's electric vehicles. And somehow that seems very green, but they're not electric vehicles. They're coal fired cars, right? Because the electricity is
00:30:51
lpaltiguzman
insider In China, in China.
00:30:52
Brenda Shaffer
Yeah, i' been but even when those cars are exported, most places, I mean, this idea that electric cars somehow have less emissions, there may be less pollution at the source, you know in the city you know, in the city itself. But most places, their electricity, ah you know, is from a combination of gas or high penetration of you know coal, natural gas. And so so ah um those electric cars are not necessarily less emissions than than than conventional cars. Certainly in China, they're coal-fired cars, right? So there's really,
00:31:25
Brenda Shaffer
china
00:31:26
lpaltiguzman
Yeah.
00:31:27
Brenda Shaffer
prefers coal over oil because, you know, most of the oil is imported. From an energy security perspective, it makes more sense to use local coal versus imported oil from an economic perspective as well. so So electric vehicles make sense for China, but there's nothing, you know, green you know green about it. Again, Chinese electric vehicles are coal. are coal fired cars.
00:31:49
Brenda Shaffer
um But why do most of the environmental organizations sort of accept this idea that you know that China's the green the green leader? Some of it is money. um China, from the late 2010s, China started, you know, sending regular, you know, a lot of money to many environmental or organizations in the West.
00:32:12
Brenda Shaffer
And second, there's something sort of wider, um wider ideological connection. which we could call the red-green-green coalition. ah Red, which is the leftist, communists. First green, which is Islamist. I'm not saying Muslims, but I'm saying Islamist, know, political Islam. And the other green, which is the climate movement, that basically many of them share funding sources, share a very, you know, pro-China agenda.
00:32:46
Brenda Shaffer
And, um you know, the idea of in the end of the day, policies that weaken electricity in the West, weaken the energy security the West, but at the same time, China forges ahead with, you know, reliable and cheap coal to power its manufacturing base. You know, these are the policies that these this this wider coalition, you know, supports and and cooperates on.
00:33:09
lpaltiguzman
So what's the advantage for China like in terms of geo-economics? Is it to make the rest of the world more dependent on their manufacturing?
00:33:17
Brenda Shaffer
I mean, when it makes the West more, i mean the world more dependent on their manufacturing too, through the climate funds, they also you know receive a lot of money, you know sort of as ah as as a country that was a developing country, all the ah imports of their renewables, through their renewables, you you increase the Western's um ah dependence on you know and Chinese manufacturing, Chinese supply chains. Many of these manufactured goods, whether it's inverters for solar and wind into the grid or electric vehicles also contain, you know, certain Chinese surveillance, kill switches, you know, so you have a variety of like really sort of control of a major infrastructure it in the West.
00:34:02
Brenda Shaffer
And then also if you have, if the West itself, you know, the if it has ah disruptions of electricity, has expensive of electricity, Obviously, its manufacturing is weakened. Its independence is weakened. And as we discussed before, you can't even think of starting an arms industry ah on on an expensive electricity basis.
00:34:25
lpaltiguzman
Very interesting. Actually, I wanted to ask you more about but this topic that you're researching now. So we'll switch to more of your personal trajectory. So Brenda, you're writing a new book, if I understood correctly.
00:34:38
Brenda Shaffer
Great.
00:34:39
lpaltiguzman
And some of that ah research is based on what you something you just mentioned, this kind of red-green alliance. So it's it's more like an ideological alliance in a way, um where we see some common denominators or or understanding common grounds between those groups of Islamo-leftist radical groups of mixed with um climate extremists or catastrophists, the way you want to call them.
00:35:10
Brenda Shaffer
Yeah.
00:35:10
lpaltiguzman
And so they they are cooperating on what? Anti-imperialism, anti-Western values, anti-capitalism. Can you explain a little bit more like how do they they seem to have so opposite um belief and in a way they meet on those grounds also including anti-Zionism and other topics.
00:35:32
Brenda Shaffer
Right. So it's actually not this red, green, green alliance. It's not even climate extremists. I would say it's most of the mainstream climate organizations. where a First thing, they share a lot of these organizations share a lot of funding.
00:35:46
Brenda Shaffer
There's a lot of Chinese money that goes through ah pass-throughs in the West or cooperates with very leftist foundations in the West that goes into the ah you know climate ah organizations and climate so-called ah journalism.
00:36:02
Brenda Shaffer
Half the time when you see a climate desk or climate department in some media outlet, um It's funded by an outside foundation. And this that means that these people are not, they're not people that write, these so-called reporters, they're they they're not directed by journalist ethics, but they're but they're you know they're their their salary comes from foundations that are you know committed to a certain climate agenda.
00:36:28
Brenda Shaffer
So we haven't been really getting objective journalism on climate from from you know the majority almost the majority of our media sources, which are which outsource it to climate to to to foundations.
00:36:39
lpaltiguzman
and And some NGOs are directly writing reports also that they send to journalists. So they are feeding them also with some data research that unbiased and not scientifically always backed up.
00:36:56
Brenda Shaffer
Yeah, I would say that that's the majority of when you see any, you know, any ah major media source discussing some new discovery, some new data in the climate world, about climate.
00:37:10
Brenda Shaffer
It's coming from NGOs, organizations that that are they're committed to um propagating this information.
00:37:17
lpaltiguzman
Thank
00:37:18
Brenda Shaffer
Like they're not committed to the pure science, right? And even you know the main organization that correlates most of the data and analysis of climate is United Nations.
00:37:29
Brenda Shaffer
Well, we know quite well the United States is not, you know, it's not a laboratory. It's not a university. It's a very political organization. We know so many topics that, you know, the UN's positions are are you know ridiculously politicized. If for some reason we believe when it comes to climate that they actually just are suddenly pure, you know, pure scientists.
Climate Change Information and Bias
00:37:48
Brenda Shaffer
I was looking, there's ah there's a scientist in the United States, John Christie, you know, has worked for University of Alabama, NASA. He just published and a really, really serious article. This guy's like a very thorough, non-bombastic.
00:38:01
Brenda Shaffer
It was really looking taking a real, a new look at like from thermometer to thermometer temperature readings of the United States. And he saw that, you know there's basically no linear temperature rise in the United States over the last, I believe, the last ah set century.
00:38:18
Brenda Shaffer
No, I didn't see any article in New York Times, Washington Post, NPR discussing this research. Right. But some NGO, you know, that's that could be partially China funded, committed to, you know, climate change right there.
00:38:33
Brenda Shaffer
They'll suddenly come up with a new report and it's, you know, it's all over the, ah you know, the media, you know, as ah as if it's a fact. Right. So I keep tracking when will one one mainstream, you know, someone's listening, one mainstream media source discuss Christie's new article, which was really revolutionary.
00:38:43
lpaltiguzman
me
00:38:51
Brenda Shaffer
Or even how when you see with the UN n changing its positions on which you know scenarios it it it it views as ah as a realistic, the coverage is you know it's ah it's quite ridiculous.
00:39:05
Brenda Shaffer
Oh, this was always an extreme scenario. Or, ah well, that's because we changed you know we changed our emissions. you know neither Neither are true, right? but But this is what mainstream media like Washington Post, New York Times, Financial Times, how they report about the the UN n
Climate Narratives and Global Trust Issues
00:39:22
Brenda Shaffer
decision. So I'm saying, hey, there's some good news. The situation is not as you know dire as as as we thought. They have to still keep the the narrative going.
00:39:32
lpaltiguzman
It makes me think I've just watched the movie that I recommend, The Wizard of the Kremlin. And it centers on the rise of Vladimir Putin and his communication strategy and his spin doctor.
00:39:42
Brenda Shaffer
Great.
00:39:45
lpaltiguzman
But there are very good lines in the movie. about how Russia's goal has been to create confusion, polarization in the Western world. And there are very good scenes where you know this chief propagandist is explaining how to ah spread chaos in our Western democracy. right like can he He gives the analogy of a wire where you turn it left, right, left, right, and then it breaks, right? And basically, it's not even believing in one cause anymore. and Like in so many different causes and
00:40:18
lpaltiguzman
narratives and um I thought it was very interesting and I guess China is um also using kind of the same strategies these days of creating distrust basically and know what is the truth what if we didn read a news article like what can we believe on climate change or in them and so I think the use of social media also for those kind of countries that are trying to manipulating young mine is also important to
00:40:22
Brenda Shaffer
Right.
00:40:47
lpaltiguzman
to highlight.
00:40:48
Brenda Shaffer
You know it's a very, i agree with you, it's it's a very similar playbook to what happened with COVID. So if you think about how we gave up our civil liberties, we agreed you know to stay in homes, we agreed that our children wouldn't go to school, even though you know doctors were saying that the COVID doesn't it's not ah doesn't imp pose a danger to children, it's less of a danger than the the regular you know season seasonal in in influenza, and we you know we still send kids to schools during during ah its flu you know flu season.
00:41:18
Brenda Shaffer
um We you know basically shut down the global ah economy because there was, and even things, you know almost every one of us, but if you've had like basic, you know I don't know, fifth grade biology class, you know that you know your bandana on your face is not gonna stop a, a virus, right? Why did we all go along with this? Because, you know, fear, you do you you know, you see you see you think that there's something out there that you don't understand, right? So it's very it's very similar with the the climate. I think that they've been very, ah so a some people who actually, but you know, believe, right? But I think some interested parties have been very good at creating this fear factor that you know, that, for instance, co-option of extreme weather, right?
00:42:03
Brenda Shaffer
hurricanes, the sea level rise, right? Today, if you look even at the IPCC, right, even the UN's version of climate, it says that today there's no impact of or of extreme weather, except for the amount of days in a row that there's heat waves. um There's no impact on extreme weather. There could be in the future, but there isn't today.
00:42:26
lpaltiguzman
The impact on the economy or impact on what? Right.
00:42:29
Brenda Shaffer
um the the The amount or the frequency of ah of ah of ah extreme weather events, right? So you don't have more intense hurricanes, more frequent hurricanes.
00:42:38
lpaltiguzman
Okay.
00:42:39
Brenda Shaffer
You don't you don't have more floods, less floods, right? You have less a much less wildfires. Like if you look from the beginning of the 20th century to today, we're we're down to about a quarter of the amount of acreage in the world that's that's but you know burned by wildfires, right?
00:42:53
Brenda Shaffer
Yet, Every time, you know, when you have a wildfire in the Palisades in California, oh, it's it's very convenient for politicians to blame climate change. When you have an arsonist, you know, you see saw ah a year and a half ago in California, you know, a Mr. Climate Change. or You see a guy, an arsonist, right? But that's climate change. Every flood, instead of saying, yeah, we we did very poor planning and built, you know, built a town or ah or a camp in a floodplain, But it's just easier to say, oh, this was climate change than than the politicians don't have to pay for their mistakes.
00:43:30
Brenda Shaffer
So it was and extreme weather is scary, right? It's out of control, you know, big things of water, or floods, you know, all all these kind of things. So. If you if you look at our press, every extreme weather event, every wildfire, it's it's climate change.
00:43:30
lpaltiguzman
Mm-hmm.
00:43:46
Brenda Shaffer
When again, like even even the more politicized science that's promoting the extreme climate agenda, like the United Nations, they don't even claim that extreme weather has changed because of because of climate change today.
00:44:01
lpaltiguzman
I mean, the other thing going on is that when you have those acopoly scenarios, you don't play the technological advances that could potentially
Technological Advances Against Global Warming
00:44:11
Brenda Shaffer
Yeah, sure. Right.
00:44:11
lpaltiguzman
mitigate all those global warming impacts.
00:44:15
lpaltiguzman
And so it's like driving a lot of pessimism rather than looking at potential solutions.
00:44:20
Brenda Shaffer
Right. And if you took like, for instance, why the solution has been that renewable energy is, is if you really were concerned with fast you know fast way to reduce emissions, putting all that manufacturing into solar, wind, you know ah it high voltage cables, That probably was not the fastest way to lower emissions, but again, it it' it's an ideological decision. There was an interest of various organizations, people that we don't have the benefits of fossil fuels, that we have this more expensive and less reliable ah electricity. And, you know, you mentioned the word like clean energy.
00:45:01
Brenda Shaffer
so So the idea that low carbon energy is clean and hot and and fossil fuels is the assumption is that fossil fuels is dirty. I think people who think that should travel more because I've traveled in many places that don't have access to regular access to fossil fuels.
00:45:18
Brenda Shaffer
especially in East Africa, which is one part of the world that I really, i love the the people, the the peoples, the geography. i spent I've spent a lot of time in my life there.
00:45:28
Brenda Shaffer
And when you see people that don't have access to electricity, to fossil fuels and electricity produced from fossil fuels, the first thing you know notice is the extreme smoke, how people have a very ah ah very short life expectancy. you know Many of them died in their forty s how many people lose their sight, how many women and children have high levels of respiratory diseases, because fossil fuels replace the real dirty energy, which is smoke, which is burning bun ah dung, biomass, wood,
00:46:01
lpaltiguzman
Including for cooking.
00:46:02
Brenda Shaffer
Yeah, people have to have energy. It's not like this idea. if you look at the Green New Deal in Europe or the the United States, it's it's like as if prior to fossil fuels, everything, animals and people lived in that harmony and everything was wonderful.
Fossil Fuels, Energy Poverty, and Pollution
00:46:17
Brenda Shaffer
Then fossil fuels came and made made pollution. Well, it's exactly the the opposite. when you have access to fossil fuels, especially to natural gas, you actually can take the smoke out of the hut or the home and you know and and and ah um you have you have a lot less smoke and what what you have is not directly you know indoor indoor pollution, it's out it's outdoor pollution.
00:46:40
Brenda Shaffer
And again, I think it's quite cruel, this um denial of fossil fuels to people that, again, they're going to use energy and it's just going to be a lot dirtier energy than than fossil fuels.
00:46:54
lpaltiguzman
Well, thank you so much, Brenda. We've covered a lot and I look forward to reading your new book.
00:46:59
Brenda Shaffer
Thank you, Lassie.
00:46:59
lpaltiguzman
and And I hope we'll have you back on the Energy Vista podcast once the book is out. Thank you.
00:47:07
Brenda Shaffer
Thank you so much.
00:47:16
lpaltiguzman
This episode was recorded on June 3rd, 2026. This is Leslie Peltie-Guzman saying good day and good luck.