The debate over whether development finance should be allowed for downstream gas projects appears to be settling toward a compromise that makes such investments rare but not impossible. But will it be so in practice? Lessons from a previous (eerily similar) compromise suggest that any flexibili...

In 2019, Ghana paid an estimated $620 million for electricity that the country did not need or use. That’s a sign of the damage done by secret deals for power.

Earlier this year, I wrote about the ban on the international financing of fossil fuels, proposed by Special Envoy John Kerry and others. I argued that such a ban would be particularly devastating for poor countries that are reliant on institutions such as the World Bank to finance much-needed energ...

The US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) is the $60 billion agency that’s supposed to catalyze investment to capital-starved countries, bolster job-creation in emerging markets, and support US foreign policy. The BUILD Act which created the DFC was a bipartisan bill, carefully craf...

Bitcoin has failed to live up to the hype that it would democratize finance by enabling cheap, instantaneous, and secure payments that could be conducted without having to rely on stodgy old financial institutions like banks and credit card companies. And the Bitcoin network’s spiraling energy needs...

Since taking office, the Biden Administration has taken several steps to address the climate crisis and plans to do more on the international stage. This trend will be in line with an earlier move by the European Union to “stop funding oil, gas, and coal projects at the end of 2021, cutting €2bn (£1...