Category: Uncategorized

by Nahia Onchalo–Meynard

“Proximity is a very big indicator of your success.”  This quote wrapped, on Feb. 22, the end of the 2026 Global Research and Consulting European Summit at Sciences Po Reims, filled with insightful talks, attentive speakers and dynamic participants. 

This summit was not only a series of conferences and delightful chocolatines; but it also went way beyond as a networking event, enlightening the attendants, broadening perspectives and creating strong ties.

Participants attended three conferences targeting sustainability, brought to them by four notable speakers.

With Miruna Senciuc, chief sustainability officer at BNP Paribas Personal Finance, and Aylin Aldana, Sustainability Program manager in the same firm, the summit opened on the potential death of sustainability; dreadful but certainly relevant nowadays. Perception shifts, geopolitical situation and economic pressures are worsening the position of sustainability as a priority in firms’ evolution and plans; quite contradictory regarding the fact that sustainable plans and practices are more needed than ever. Methodology is therefore essential: from the framing, diagnosis, strategic stakes definition and finally implementation, sustainability becomes a criteria, not an afterthought.  

One conference that stood out for its originality, intimacy and kindness of the speaker was Serban Toader’s. As a former Senior Partner at KPMG Romania, Mr Toader provided us with an insight into the life of a consultant. It helped not only to grasp the full picture of the consulting world and its implications, but also to reflect on our own qualities, predispositions, ambitions and the sacrifices we are willing to make. I was lucky enough to converse with the speaker later on to discover that he likes to define his mindset with a single word: serendipity, the luck that one makes for itself. Having aspirations and goals is undoubtedly useful, but strong and meaningful networks are the best means to make your way and create your luck, to insert yourself in this highly competitive and exclusive field that is consulting. 

The conferences on Saturday ended with Craig Stock, Associate at McKinsey in sustainability. Conforming to the theme, he spoke about how sustainability could unexpectedly be respected and aimed at in such a big firm. Drawing from his experience, he dove into the heart of the problem: is sustainability a constraint or a strategic advantage? According to him, it can actually be more of a perk; with the current innovations, sustainability can only open markets, enhance brand reputation and provide a stable initiative and a competitive differentiation.

The following day, part of the GRC participants were taking part in a case competition revolving around sustainability, tariffs and growth, in teams mixing the Reims, Le Havre and Menton campuses. It has been an additional way to bond with people, discover personalities and minds and improve teamwork. Many solutions were developed and many more discussed, highlighting how the research and consulting world is simultaneously diverse, complex, fascinating and tricky. Le Havre was well represented across four teams out of seven, and placed on the podium twice! Congratulations are therefore in order for Emily Fan, Zonglun Li, Amanda Deng, Aryan Shukla (Reims campus) and James Liu (Reims campus) who made their way to the first place, as well as Lynne Mizushima, Elena Hayashi, Eng Yi Seow, Nahia Onchalo–Meynard and Alice Loy (Paris campus), reaching the second place. All other contestants also deserve the warmest compliments, as each presentation demonstrated different kinds of wit and organisation. Beyond the satisfaction of seeing the work pay and the risks in the strategy-making being acknowledged, it was mostly rewarding on a more personal scale. New relations, new experiences, we are all coming back with our heads, hearts and stomachs full, impatient to travel back to our little windy port and return to our busy student lives. We leave the compelling consulting world and an unexpectedly sunny Reims with strong memories and energy. 

Article inspired by the 2026 Warwick Economic Summit Seminar: ” The Role of Think Tanks” with Samuel Cruickshank, Head of Education at the Institute of Economic Affairs 

by Giulia Porcu

If the idea of entering politics to redirect its trajectory from within has ever occurred to you out of dissatisfaction with its present direction, in Friedrich August von Hayek’s eyes you are indeed naive. Globally renowned for his contribution to political economy, philosophy and intellectual history, the Austrian economist and philosopher was among the firsts to realize that politics is downstream from the battle of ideas. Once the upperhand in the battle of ideas is won, there won’t be the need to influence politics directly because it is highly probable that politics will follow. Vice versa, ephemeral political achievements and isolation are the price for losing the battle. Within this framework it is crucial to state what we all know but purposely forget: we do not produce our own ideas; we don’t even acquire them from original thinkers and scientists who come up with original insights. We get them from “ideas retailers”, more commonly known as intermediaries — reporters, educators, creatives, analysts, thought leaders, and specialists addressing issues beyond their primary domains. In a multifaceted society, just as we don’t acquire food straight from producers but through grocery chains, we rarely absorb concepts from their origins; we acquire them through those who present and disseminate them. These individuals determine which ideas reach the population, in what format, and with what focus. They function as gatekeepers of legitimacy. Once they embrace a specific ideology, its diffusion into public perspective becomes nearly inevitable, and the political realm follows suit. Think tanks work upstream in this mechanism: they don’t aim directly for the populace but rather target the distributors. By shaping the individuals who influence society’s intellectual path, they alter the limits of what is perceived as typical or rational — the Overton window — after which legislation simply ratifies what has already been accepted as common knowledge. 

The 2013 Marriage Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, argued Samuel Cruickshank — Head of Education at The Institute of Economic Affairs and seminar speaker at the Warwick Economic Summit — is an emblematic example of how public opinion can evolve through sustained exposure to certain narratives.  Homosexual marriage was first repulsed and violently disregarded. However, once it became a mainstream idea through think tanks production of policy reports, organisation of public events and engagement with journalists and policymakers, indifference became the key word to describe public reaction to the Act. Given the disclosed impact of these self-standing policy-oriented research institutions, which are at times shaped by insincere and registered lobbyists,  think tanks influence peddling has been critically targeted by various academics. In 2016, over the many months that officials in Washington considered adopting new regulations for Internet providers, Jeffrey A. Eisenach — scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute — and his critiques of the propositions were not hard to notice. Intense advocacy by a think tank expert is not particularly striking per se, but Mr Eisenach, former aide at the Federal Trade Commission, has held another job: a paid consultant for Verizon and its trade association. Unsurprisingly he is not the only think tank researcher who worked as registered lobbyists while also being members of corporate boards or external consultants in litigation and regulatory disputes.  “With their expertise and authority, think tank scholars offer themselves as independent arbiters, playing a vital role in Washington’s political economy” reported the New York Times. “Their imprimatur helps shape government decisions that can be lucrative to corporations. But the examination identified dozens of examples of scholars conducting research at think tanks while corporations were paying them to help shape government policy”. 

Ironically, when asked what think tanks were good for, Canadian economist Rohinton Medhora’s answer was “influence peddling in the best sense of the term”. To better explain his enigmatic answer, he introduced the idea of a spectrum, one that goes from basic to applied form of research and ultimately to its application, subsequently influencing people’s decision and behaviour, ultimately leading to structural policy changes. Think tanks inhabit approximately that latter 60% of that spectrum: rarely involved in basic fundamental research, they draw upon research that has either already been done or ‘package’ it differently to come up with proposals, which they then move into the public policy domain and into the market place of ideas. Think tanks are now in the business of influencing and the success of Andrew Selee’s book, “What Should Think Tanks Do?: A Strategic Guide to Policy Impact”, proves the growing interest in this matter. Sharing Medhora’s line of thought and positing that their impactfulness is a derivative of their strategy, he identified five aspects that these institutions need to master in order to be more strategic: clarity of mission, identification of unique strengths and lanes, reach of targeted audiences, financial and human resources and finally systematic ways to capture impact. 

Think thanks occupy a paradoxical space. They aren’t neutral observers nor are they lobbying machines: they are structured actors in the upstream struggle over legitimacy. Ultimately, as highlighted by Samuel Cruickshank, these institutions’ greatest value is their  reputation for evidence-based research that stands upon rigorous academic and ethical standards. Still, the multiplicity of roles played by think tank scholars is worrying. In a world where political influence lies on economic availability, how much do think thanks  get paid to have a certain point of view?

by Nahia Onchalo–Meynard

With the late XXth century opening of the West to more progressive ideas and the complexity of the legislation in Asia between western influences, local culture and opposition to current tendencies, the topic remains blurry and unspoken. Through the Asia Pacific Research Circle, Erika Nannette, Alyssia Bouniol, Lise Rivet, Maalavika Hareesh and I are currently working on a research paper targeting those issues, and we were delighted to benefit from the insights of India and gender studies expert Professor Otavio Amaral. This interview will tackle the situation and perception of the LGBTQ+ community in India, with its complexity and cultural richness.

Nahia ONCHALO–MEYNARD : 

• According to you, does India have a strong LGBTQ+ cultural and historical background?

Otavio AMARAL :

• There’s an issue in India that’s really controversial especially if you take the nationalist policies and BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party, conservative Indian Party and current Prime Minister Modi’s Party), because they are trying to use the LGBTQ identity as something that is really rooted in India, as something that has been really there for forever. Take the example of the hijras (Ed.:  linked to the western gender qualification of transgender women), usually people qualify as having been there for a long time, even before Christ. It is nature and in the Vedas, you will notice that there is a third gender, a third nature that is neither masculine nor feminine.

But when you see the data and the demographic data that is available, that is mostly colonial. Indeed, before colonialism, we didn’t have such structures for documenting the population of the territory. 

There’s something that has been present in India for a really long time, especially the transgender identity. However, we see that it is not that open. Yes, they have been there, but it has started being documented during the colonization. So we cannot affirm with certitude that they were there before. They most probably were, but this welcoming mindset of their constant presence is not totally accurate or certain. They are like the incarnation of sacred natures or the incarnation of some goddesses, such as Bahuchara Mat, the most important goddess when we refer to hijras. Especially, if you try to go deeper in the analysis of some intellectuals of that time, mostly those who wrote about sexuality and who were trying to interpret the Kama Sutra just after the colonization, they were always trying to impose this dichotomy of feminine and masculine. So when you ask me if the LGBTQ+ culture is present in India, I would say that these people have always existed, as non-normative sexual identities.

But we cannot affirm that India has been welcoming. We can state today that the nationalist policies, especially the BJP discourse, has tried to shape a certain kind of welcoming policy or a welcoming idea of India as something that has been opposed to the West, has been opposed to Christianity, and especially to the criminalization of LGBTQ identities, especially when we speak about the English colonies. But we cannot say that these people have been integrated into society in a harmonious way.

Erika NANNETTE :

• Can you say the same about sexualities? You thoroughly developed transgender identity and how it possibly was present for a long time in India, but is it also true for sexualities?

Otavio AMARAL : 

• I think sexuality would be different, and especially in India. We still witness a taboo, because sexuality has always been approached through the perspective of reproduction or natality; not, for example, the right for women to have access to abortion. So the question of sexuality is not the same as gender, but it has really been silenced, and it is still really taboo in India. So we cannot say that the non-LGBTQ sexualities have existed.

The thing that we can try to understand is the hijra and the third gender, and it means feminine transgenders, transgender women, as we would say in the West. They have been; we can try to understand their presence throughout Indian history, but we cannot say that sexuality is something that has been really there. Probably, yes, but we cannot say that it has been there.

And sometimes people say: “but in the Kama Sutra, there are some positions that are not addressed to the normal intercourse.” But this is the exception, so we cannot say that it is a main element that is important and that we can take as an example of acceptability or not in India.

So I have an impression that, yes, we have tried to say that marginalization, criminalization of non-normative sexualities have been implemented by colonizers, but it has always been there. The patriarchy has always been in the Indian social structure, especially when you see the Vedas and the sacred. We cannot use the example of the Kama Sutra or some other texts or some other religious movements as the tantra and say that it has an image of a certain kind of acceptability or tolerance. We cannot use those elements to claim that India is the example.

Nahia O.–M. :

• As you said that the BJP tried to oppose India to the West, would you say in that perspective that it is integrating the diversity of Indian sexuality to their ideas, or on the contrary, that they are opposing it?

O. AMARAL :

• They are trying, they have a strategy of co-opting electors for them. So it’s a really controversial thing when you go to India and you see all the letters composing the LGBTQ acronym, you witness different perspectives on the policies. If you take, for example, cisgender men that I interviewed during my fieldwork, many of them support BJP because they are in this kind of mindset that BJP is going to bring development and westernization of the economy and neoliberalism.

So there is this homonationalism really present among upper class and upper caste, cisgender homosexual men especially. But when you talk with lesbian women or non-binary people, especially the hijras or kothis (Ed.: man in same-sex relationship undertaking the “female” role in the traditional disposition of relationships), it is another identity present in India used to address lower caste and lower class cisgender gay men who are effeminate at the same time. So it is really a question of performance of masculinity in their case.

They don’t support BJP for its policies, they know they are not turned towards them. The BJP policies turn towards upper caste, upper class, especially urbanized populations. And these people, they are already discriminated against in their own society, they are at the bottom of the social hierarchy of class and caste.

So they are more willing to support other parties, such as the party of Ambedkar or the Bahujan People Party. Those are the parties for lower caste people. And many of these people, especially transgender women and the hijras are supporting those parties. But at the same time, there are controversies inside their own movement. Indeed, if you take an important figure for LGBTQ rights, Lakshmi Tripathi, she is a transgender woman, she supports BJP, and she is trying to promote hijra identity as something that’s really like, almost ascetic, really sacred, and really the image of the goddesses to give value to India. But it’s really controversial, because in India, we cannot understand the society and its social movements without taking into account class and caste. 

But we can say that LGBTQ people, regarding the mobilization, are everywhere. They are on all the spectrum, because they have been used as an object for the implementation of different strategies, especially strategies to keep the power in the hands of the BJP. So BJP, they were really conservative, but they have been shifting their discourses according to the needs of the society. And now, society, especially the global society, says that LGBTQ rights are important.

Moreover, since India wants to be a global player in global politics worldwide, and the worldwide structure is based on democracy and rights for everyone. So they have been using LGBTQ+ people because they want to oppose the Muslim movements that are supposed, according to them, to be based on the Sharia, and on the criminalization and violence against LGBTQ people. 

So the way they use the discourses to support LGBTQ  people is really subtle on the one hand, and on the other hand, they want to oppose other countries, such as Bangladesh and Pakistan, especially.

Nahia O.–M.:

• Is being LGBTQ associated with a certain cast ? is it valued in a caste and resented in another one? 

O. A. :

• I think that the issue of caste is really transversal, it’s present inside the LGBTQ community, but you can juxtapose, for example, caste and class on the, on the sexual and gender markers. But you cannot do the opposite. You cannot try to understand gender and sexuality based on the caste structure.

Because caste is something that’s really inherited, and the sexuality and the gender is something that is performed and fabricated, and there’s a process of  discovery of the gender and of creation of the gender.

So I don’t, I would not agree, and I would not say that. We can say that there are some castes for which sexuality and gender subversion or transgression or deviance would be more, more acceptable or more traditional. But it is really the other way when you  can try to understand gender and sexuality and do an intersection with caste and class, but you cannot speak about gender and sexuality through the lenses of class and caste structure.

But I would say, according to my fieldwork, that it’s really, really individual, and it’s really particular to each community, each person. Because when you go to upper class and upper caste people whose parents have some university degrees and have been abroad, there would not be this issue of being LGBTQ, or maybe being LGBTQ would be well seen because the child is going towards the West patterns and the Western subversion to patriarchy and to the normal social rules. But for other families, for other upper caste and upper class families they want to reproduce the caste structure that’s based on reproduction and on heterosexuality.

I have seen that there is much more solidarity inside the LGBTQ people from the lower caste and lower class, but they are not accepted by their families. And it might be even worse, because the families are not used to this concept of non heteronormative and heterosexual families. And that’s the opposite of the upper class and upper caste people who are really the global game, so they know how things have changed internationally.

Nahia O.–M. 

• Lastly, do you think this wave of anti-queerness is a reaction to Western tendencies (pro-LGBTQ+ legislation and activism, …) so as to differentiate themselves from the West, or a conformism to Western culture (the culture alive during colonialist times) ?

O. A. :

• I would say that anti-queerness is both a way of establishing a difference regarding the West (literally in a post-colonial effect), and also an unconscious continuum of colonial imposition. Nevertheless, it should be interpreted case by case in a historiographic perspective of particular cultural and political contexts. 

India’s LGBTQ+ landscape therefore can only be defined as diverse, wide, complex and part of a bigger picture. Skimming through it or focusing solely on the LGBTQ+ community would be a hurdle to fully grasp all the multiple standpoints, values, beliefs, traditions and cultures that the Indian queer community is overflowing with.

by Le Xuan Yeo

“We need to build 96000 houses a day over the next 15 years to meet 2030 targets.” (UN Habitat)

Such a figure is staggering, but it indeed is the reality that many face. It reflects the compounding global gaps of informal settlements, climate-displaced communities and generations of underinvestment. And today, over 3 billion people live in unsafe housing with 1.1 billion people living in informal settlements, and such a number could rise to 3 billion by 2050. With Sustainable Development Goal 11.1 aiming to ensure access for all to adequate, safe and affordable housing, basic services and the upgrading of slums, how can we achieve this as a whole if people do not even have a roof over their heads? 

To grasp both the scale and urgency of this issue, I will situate it within the broader framework of urban economics. After all, the housing crisis is not simply about bricks and mortar, it is about markets that fail millions, policies that ignore structural inequalities and systems that too often prioritise investment returns over human dignity. 

An Urban Economics Framework

Housing is both a basic human need and a central economic goal, yet, unlike most goods, supply cannot adjust quickly to rising demand. In urban economics, housing is notoriously inelastic: populations grow faster than housing units can be produced, particularly in major cities where land, regulation and costs constrain construction. With cities around the world battling a housing crisis in recent decades, further exacerbated by the cost-of-living crisis that saw inflation reach record highs in 2022, it is important to assess the supply-and-demand factors influencing housing. 

On supply, the world today builds far too few houses. In major developed economies, housing lags behind demonstrated demand. For example, in Europe’s largest economy, Germany, a government-commissioned study found that the country must build 320,000 new apartments per year by 2030 simply to meet demand, but permits and starts currently fall well short. In cities such as London, private developers build where profits are highest, often in luxury sectors with high returns, while low income and workforce housing languishes because margins are thin and risks appear large. As for emerging economies, the challenge is often different but no less severe. Informal settlements expand because formal housing is unavailable or unaffordable, and millions of urban residents live without secure tenure or basic services. Africa’s urban housing sector is dominated by informal dwellings, accounting for 62% of urban units in some regions.

As for demand, urbanisation is the dominant demographic trend of our time. According to the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, cities now house 45% of the global population, a share that has more than doubled since 1950, and by 2050 two-thirds of humanity is projected to live in urban areas. In urban economics, we normally expect the cause-and-effect relationship of urbanisation leading to more people moving into cities, which has attracted so many people from the rural areas in search of jobs and better living conditions over the time. The creation of jobs leads to rising incomes, enabling people to have greater purchasing power and creating formal housing demand. However, in many Global South contexts, urbanisation is happening without enough formal job growth. People have been sold the utopic vision that cities are where a better future lies ahead, but incomes remain low and unstable, and this instead creates demand for housing that the formal market cannot supply at affordable prices. 

Cities today thus function both as engines of prosperity and epicenters of inequality. In fact, homelessness is a growing problem in the Global North. In many Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, households spend nearly one-fifth of disposable income on housing, while in costly metro regions the share can soar above 30%. Worse still, in the United States, it is concerning how 21.6 million households were spending more than 50% of income on housing in 2024, another new high. 

Solving the Housing Crisis

The housing crisis certainly sounds daunting but UN Habitat Secretary-General Anacláudia Rossbach remains motivated in this field of work. The UN Habitat aims to extend their capacity to implement their mandate through very strategic partnerships and they have been developing a whole front of partnerships with universities and academia to maximise the knowledge and expertise that is out there. After all, building and leveraging local capacity is very important in developing a sub-regional layer that truly addresses the needs of local communities. 

What I believe is more important, however, is a fundamental restructuring of the financial mechanism for the housing market. Current mechanisms are very disconnected from the city level, and if we do not solve such structural issues, we will ultimately erode our own resilience. Scarcity is certainly a limiting factor but the key problem is how current housing markets are a data-driven, speculative asset system, where people treat a house as an investment to gain even more profits. To address the housing crisis, we need to move towards equity-based models, such as public-private partnerships and land value capture to leverage private capital for affordable housing. Another effective solution would be replacing traditional property taxes with a land value tax that captures publicly created gains and vacancy taxes that curb speculative demand. This must be supplemented by “by-right” development that places the distribution of affordable housing at the centre of social policy, where housing projects meeting basic standards proceed without lengthy discretionary review and are prioritised in land use policies, so as to reduce unnecessary obstacles to building. 

In conclusion, urban economics tells us how urbanisation becomes a mechanism of exclusion when supply falters but demand remains at an all time high. The challenge ahead for the housing crisis demands global cooperation, local innovation and sustained governance at every level. What remains is the collective will to build cities where everyone has a right to a decent home and a fair share in the economic promise of urban life.

References List:

1. Goel, Ankita, and Peter Lawrence. “U.S. Housing Cost Burdens Reach All-Time High in 2024 as Pressures Expand Across Income Groups.” Notes from Novogradac, February 12, 2026. https://www.novoco.com/notes-from-novogradac/us-housing-cost-burdens-reach-alltime-high-in-2024-as-pressures-expand-across-income-groups.
2. International Monetary Fund. Finance & Development, December 2024. PDF. https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2024/12/december-finance-and-development.pdf.
3. Kraemer, Christian, Tom Sims, and Tomasz Janowski. “Germany Must Build 320,000 Apartments Yearly to Meet Housing Demand, Study Shows.” Reuters, March 20, 2025. https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/germany-must-build-320000-apartments-yearly-meet-housing-demand-study-shows-2025-03-20/.
4. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Housing and Inclusive Growth. OECD, 2020. https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/reports/2020/09/housing-and-inclusive-growth_6034487d/6ef36f4b-en.pdf.
5. Smit, Warren. “Urban Governance in Africa: An Overview.” International Development Policy | Revue internationale de politique de développement 10 (2018): 55–77. DOI:10.4000/poldev.2637. http://journals.openedition.org/poldev/2637.
6. United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat). WUF13 Background Paper: Housing the World: Safe and Resilient Cities and Communities. October 2025. PDF. https://wuf.unhabitat.org/sites/default/files/pdf/wuf13-background-paper.pdf.
7. United Nations. “Cities are home to 45 per cent of the global population, with megacities continuing to grow, UN report finds.” UN.org, 2025. https://www.un.org/fr/node/236908.

by Nil Topcular

Sciences Po Environment had a guest speaker event on Jan. 29 concerning clean energy transitions, with energy analyst Carole Etienne taking the stage to talk to students about natural gas and energy policies. As an energy analyst at the International Energy Agency (IEA), her intervention gave insight into the challenges of natural gas as well as the role of the IEA.

Natural gas is a controversial subject and the IEA’s role in this debate is to provide tools to understand its challenges and also to overcome them. This is critical, as natural gas represents 24% of the world’s energy consumption with  uses in sectors ranging from electric generation to domestic uses.

However,natural gas was not always as global as it is now. The globalization of natural gas was facilitated by the invention of liquified natural gas, or LNG. This led to a shift from regional pipelines to internationally connected energy networks, and gas became an international energy supply. This increased the importance in having regulations and policy surrounding it.

Its highly diverse areas of use and its global role make gas key. Demand for gas follows two pathways: current policies (in state) or states policies (not yet implemented). The development of industrial power combined with rising electricity needs in emerging markets—mainly developing countries in the Asia Pacific region —drives ongoing demand growth for natural gas.

Recently, the focus of energy policy has been changing. As mentioned by Etienne, safety is becoming more and more central in policy discussions. This topic was previously overlooked in this area but is now one of the main subjects of energy policy. Indeed, following the Russo-Ukrainian War, access to reliable and safe energy has become a priority for many states. Especially Asia and Europe, as the main consumers of natural gas, have a “competition.” As Russia started cutting gas, this competition became more vivid.

Energy policies are changing. At the forefront is the EU Methane regulation, as the first EU framework targeting transparency on methane emissions. This also addresses the key theme in energy that is interconnectedness. It therefore represents not only a step towards limiting methane emissions but also addressing the issue at multiple levels. For the IEA, the current policy priorities are to set a clear roadmap for long-term visibility for investment in the market, developing integrated supply chains as well as  supporting innovation. 

Considering current consumption and reliance on gas, it is safe to say that gas is not going anywhere. So, what’s important here is how it is consumed, starting with methane emission. As methane is a heavy polluter, even a small leak can be detrimental:one tonne of methane has the same effect as 30 tonnes of CO2. Limiting methane leaks would render 100 billion cubic metres of natural gas available to the market,  leak prevention is both beneficial to the climate and in terms of consumption. Despite heightened competition for consumption, reducing methane emissions is beneficial to all parties as it increases gas supply. 

Limiting methane emissions is not necessarily difficult. In fact, around 70% of emissions can actually be avoided with current technology, and at a very low cost: detecting and fixing leaks or even building vapour recovery units are simple solutions that already exist. It is now just a matter of implementation. 

Transparency is one of the main ways of combatting climate change, especially because  of  huge differences in carbon footprints. For example, Turkmenistan is one of the highest polluting countries. It has a very high methane emission, which can be explained by a higher amount of gas leaks and equipment age. But as Etienne said, energy consumption has no borders. Global cooperation is thus another essential tool to reducing climate change, despite discrepancies in emissions.

While energy consumption faces issues due to a complex geopolitical context and energy policy gains more importance, we also have a role in this. Indeed, Etienne started her speech by mentioning that many IEA employees are Sciences Po alumni, showing that we could be the ones shaping this area in the future.What the IEA consulting governments as well as to research and publishing reports concerning energy and energy policies, which give insight into topics such as the evolution of demand and prices. Geopolitical conflicts and pressure to reduce emissions is currently shifting the focus of energy policy and, as Sciences Po students, we have the opportunity to determine its direction.