Kina sikter mot toppen
A presentation of China's new Five-year plan. Part of NUPI's "Hvor hender det?" series.
Kinesisk digi-tek fra fri galopp til båndtvang
Op-ed on changing regulations for Chinese digital technology
Grenseløs kamp mot korona
A presentation of the international Covid-19 response cooperation, at the early stages of the pandemic. Part of NUPI's "Hvor hender det?" series.
Central Asia is a missing link in analyses of critical materials for the global clean energy transition
The energy transition is causing a surge in demand for minerals for clean energy technologies, giving rise to concerns about the sources and security of supplies of critical materials. Although Central Asia was one of the Soviet Union's main sources of metals and industrial minerals, it has been forgotten in contemporary global critical materials analyses. Here we review the Central Asian mineral resource base and assess its current and potential contributions to global supply chains. We find that the importance of Central Asia lies mainly in the diversity of its mineral base, which includes mineable reserves of most critical materials for clean energy applications. This renders the region important in mineral economics, security of supply, and geopolitical perspectives alike. In sum, Central Asia is likely to become a new hotspot for mineral extraction and a major global supplier of selected critical materials for clean energy technologies.
Local and Global Aspects of Coal in the ASEAN Countries
By 2020, coal mining and power generation had been growing in Southeast Asia for decades and were projected to rise to new heights of prominence in regional energy systems, weakening the energy security of all states in the region except Indonesia, jeopardizing the NDCs of the ASEAN states under the Paris Agreement and deepening existing domestic political fault lines. Coal utilization has well-known public health, agricultural, water security and economic consequences, many of which are magnified in Southeast Asia, with its high population density and limited wind and arable land. Paradoxically, the short-sighted focus on affordability imposes significant longer-term economic risks on these states as renewable energy prices fall, while ASEAN markets for such energy sources remain underutilized.
The Arctic Environmental Responsibility Index: A method to rank heterogenous extractive industry companies for governance purposes
The Arctic Environmental Responsibility Index (AERI) covers 120 oil, gas, and mining companies involved in resource extraction north of the Arctic Circle in Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Finland, Norway, Russia, and Sweden. It is based on an international expert perception survey among 173 members of the International Panel on Arctic Environmental Responsibility (IPAER), whose input is processed using segmented string relative ranking (SSRR) methodology. Equinor, Total, Aker BP, ConocoPhillips, and BP are seen as the most environmentally responsible companies, whereas Dalmorneftegeophysica, Zarubejneft, ERIELL, First Ore-Mining Company, and Stroygaz Consulting are seen as the least environmentally responsible. Companies operating in Alaska have the highest average rank, whereas those operating in Russia have the lowest average rank. Larger companies tend to rank higher than smaller companies, state-controlled companies rank higher than privately controlled companies, and oil and gas companies higher than mining companies. The creation of AERI demonstrates that SSRR is a low-cost way to overcome the challenge of indexing environmental performance and contributing to environmental governance across disparate industrial sectors and states with divergent environmental standards and legal and political systems.
Fossil Fuels in Central Asia: Trends and Energy Transition Risks
This data article provides an overview of fossil fuel trends in Central Asia from 2010 to 2019. Data on the production, consumption, export and import of coal, natural gas and oil are summarised for Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. While promoting renewable energy, Central Asia continues to rely on and expand the use of coal, natural gas and oil with no major phase-out plans yet on the horizon.
Rebel governance? A literature review of Boko Haram and the Islamic State in West Africa Province
The literature on rebel governance has fundamentally challenged the idea that ‘governance’ is the sole prerogative of ‘government’. Despite important advances over the past decade, studies have largely addressed rebel governance from an ‘institutionalist’ approach. This review seeks to go beyond an ‘institutionalist’ approach, by understanding ‘governance’ as the ‘whole set of practices and norms that govern daily life in a specific territory’. Drawing on a thorough review of literature on Boko Haram and the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP), this working paper analyses five under-examined independent variables that shape rebel governance in Nigeria’s north-east and Niger: illegitimate state practices, community resilience, and cohesion, external counterinsurgency actions, ‘big men’, and ideology.
The Financial Crisis: An Introduction
This section discusses the origins of the Eurozone crisis in European Monetary Union before discussing various dimensions of how the Eurozone coped, its impact on integration, and the crisis’ implications for the future of the EU. While the authors all show that the EU’s response to the financial crisis reflected the scenario ‘muddling through,’ they have different perspectives on the future of integration post crisis. Rosén and Olsen point out that the austerity policies implemented after crisis resulted in collective protest movements across Europe. Tranøy and Stenstad highlight the failure of financial sector reforms to reset the social role of finance in a more equitable way. Caporaso analyses the unintended consequences of differentiated integration during crisis by exploring the impact of the Eurozone crisis on Brexit and the migration crisis.
Ståle Ulriksen
Ståle Ulriksen had a 20 percent position at NUPI, in the Research Group for Security and Defence.His research areas includes: Security and defence...