C.O.B. Tuesday

Today we were delighted to welcome Dr. Carolyn Kissane, Associate Dean of Graduate Programs and Global Affairs at NYU’s Center for Global Affairs. Dr. Kissane is a Lifetime Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a Senior Fellow at the George H.W. Bush Foundation for US-China Relations, Co-Host of “The Clean Energy Revolution” Podcast, and Founding Director of NYU’s Energy, Climate Justice, and Sustainability Lab. Carolyn earned her Ph.D. in Comparative Education and Political Science from Columbia University and has been with NYU since 2004. Her research focuses on energy, sustainability innovation and policy, and cybersecurity. We were thrilled to connect with Carolyn for an insightful discussion on energy and global affairs.

In our conversation, Carolyn provides background on NYU’s energy studies, its interdisciplinary approach, and the growing importance of understanding the connection between energy systems, economic security, and human security. Carolyn shares observations on the increasing focus on climate and energy security at the Council on Foreign Relations, especially with regards to trade and tariffs. We explore the changing dynamics of oil markets, the ineffectiveness of sanctions, the increase of rule-breaking in international trade, shifting student perceptions of energy, global energy dynamics and the U.S.’s competitive advantage due to its abundance of natural gas resources. We touch on Carolyn’s experiences in Kazakhstan, the severity of the energy crisis in Europe and Germany’s economic struggles, the difficulty of reversing these challenges due to regulatory and high energy costs, how bureaucratic challenges and regulatory barriers are slowing down development in Europe and the US, Javier Milei’s political appeal, US energy competitiveness, and much more. We ended by asking Carolyn for her vision of climate policy leadership ten years from now. It was a broad-based discussion and we’re thankful to Carolyn for sharing her time and unique insights.

Mike Bradley kicked us off by highlighting broader equity market volatility, the beginning of Q3 Energy sector reporting, and observations regarding this week’s plunge in crude oil price. On the broader equity market front, ASML Holding’s stock priced plunged due to their semiconductor orders noticeably missing estimates which in turn pressured the “hot” Technology sector lower. Liberty Energy and SLB will be the first two oil service companies reporting Q3 results this week with investors focused on their NAM oil service activity & pricing outlook and international revenue guidance. On the crude oil front, WTI price plunged ~$5/bbl (~$70/bbl) this week due to three interrelated issues: Mideast supply concerns, a reduction in global oil demand estimates, and Brent oil traders recently repositioning themselves from a “net short” to a “net long” managed money futures trading position. Jeff Tillery added to Mike’s comments and emphasized that the narrow range analysts are predicting for oil prices in 2025 is unlikely to be accurate and to consider the potential factors that could drive prices either higher or lower than consensus.

We greatly enjoyed our global discussion with Carolyn today and hope you find it as interesting as we did. Our best to you all!