This book is about the new global map that is being shaped by dramatic shifts in geopolitics and energy. It is also about where this map is taking us. Geopolitics focuses on the shifting
balance and rising tensions among nations. Energy reflects farreaching alterations in global supply and flows, driven in major part by the remarkable change in the energy position of the United States, and by the growing global role of renewables and the new politics of climate.
Different kinds of power are in play. One is the power of nations that is shaped by economics, military capabilities, and geography; by grand strategy and calculated ambition; by suspicion and fear; and by the contingent and the unexpected. The other is the power that comes from oil and gas and coal, from wind and solar, and from splitting atoms, and the power that comes from policies that seek to reorder the world’s energy system and move toward net zero carbon in the name of climate.
This is no simple map to follow, for it is dynamic, constantly changing. It has been made even more complicated by the coronavirus that swept out of China and across the planet in 2020, bringing grief and vast human suffering and disarray. It also shut down the world economy, disrupted commerce both local and global, destroyed jobs and businesses and impoverished many, plunged the world economy into the deepest recession since the Great Depression, added enormously to public debt, accentuated the tensions among countries, and created vast turmoil in global energy markets.