Category: Highlights

South Africa is in the midst of an energy crisis, despite its significant oil, gas, and renewable energy potential. This is mainly due to a prolonged economic crisis and poor management of the state-owned utility. Instability in the country’s energy industry has meant that new developments have been shrouded in uncertainty, with the hope that they will eventually boost South Africa’s energy security.  An array of economic reforms has been released by the South African government in a bid to improve the country’s declining economy, and some seem to be working.…

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For better or for worse, the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt may be the most important iteration of the annual United Nations huddle since 2015 and Paris. Depending on how one sees it, COP 27 – the official abbreviation for the event with COP standing for Conference of the Parties – resulted in either the biggest win on climate since COP 15 and the Paris Agreement or represents the biggest missed opportunity. The Sharm el-Sheikh Implementation Plan agreed at the end of the conference included…

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Market experts disagreed with JP Morgan, a leading global financial institution that penciled in an interest rate hike of 400 basis points by the end of fiscal year 2023 (June 30), arguing that pressure on Pakistan’s economy stemming from inflation and external factors would subside in coming months. JPMorgan, in its ‘Asia Pacific Economic Research’ on December 5, 2022, had said it was penciling “in another 400bps of hikes, bringing the policy rate to 20% by end-FY23”. However, experts disagreed with the projections. “I believe this will not be the…

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A couple of months ago, U.S. President Joe Biden urged energy companies to stop ‘war profiteering’ and even threatened to slap them with windfall tax if they failed to invest their profits in lowering costs for Americans and increasing production. The calls came at a time when Big Oil has been posting record profits amid high commodity and energy prices.  The majority of energy companies have avoided spending big to expand production in the aftermath of the 2020 oil crisis, prioritizing returning more cash to shareholders in the form of dividends and…

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Canada has officially ended its government support for international fossil fuel projects, fulfilling a commitment it made at last year’s Conference of the Parties, or COP, Ottawa said in a statement. “The Government of Canada is taking a suite of actions to achieve Canada’s climate goals,” the statement read. “These include accelerating our G20 commitment “to phase out and rationalize inefficient fossil fuel subsidies” from 2025 to 2023, and to develop a plan to phase out public financing of the fossil fuel sector, including by federal Crown corporations, in accordance with the…

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