Experts in the News

“China has to go against the economic calculus to retire at least some of the coal if it wants to lower emission levels,” said energy fellow Anna Mikulska. “This is why we see China still consuming so much.”

The institute has initiated a working group to develop a U.S. protocol for paying ranchers and farmers to store carbon in their soil. The current system for voluntary carbon transactions is broken and needs to be fixed, group founders said. The group is co-led by Baker Institute Rice Faculty Scholar Jim Blackburn and Center for Energy Studies Senior Director Ken Medlock.

Recent developments in the Middle East have created new opportunities for diplomacy, said Baker Institute director Edward P. Djerejian.

Baker Institute faculty scholar Dan Wallach's biggest concern was that a nation-state actor like Russia would find a way to tamper with voter registration databases, leading to long lines at the polls that discourage people from voting. "If someone were to damage the voter registration database selectively, like only in neighborhoods that vote one way but not in neighborhoods that vote another way, there could be a partisan outcome from that tampering."

Should Saudi Arabia join a few other big oil producers in a streamlined cartel? Energy fellow Jim Krane's analyzed this question.