Nikos Tsafos

James R. Schlesinger Chair for Energy and Geopolitics, Center for Strategic and International Studies

Nikos Tsafos is the James R. Schlesinger chair in energy and geopolitics with the Energy Security and Climate Change Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. In this role, he oversees work on managing the geopolitics of energy and climate change, advancing industrial policies for clean energy, ensuring a just transition for workers and communities, and equipping U.S. foreign policy and the multilateral system to deal with climate change and the energy transition. Tsafos has written extensively on the geopolitics of energy and natural gas; the political economy of hydrocarbon states; European climate policy; sustainable cities and mobility; the pace and trajectory of the energy transition; and the geopolitics of energy in the Arctic, Europe, the eastern Mediterranean, and Southeast Asia. Before CSIS, he worked for over a decade as a consultant and advised companies and governments in over 30 countries on some of the world’s most complex energy projects. From 2016-19, Tsafos also taught a course on natural gas at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He has testified before Congress, and his views are often found in media outlets like The New York Times, Financial Times, and Bloomberg. Tsafos has written for Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The National Interest, and others. He is the author of Beyond Debt: The Greek Crisis in Context (CreateSpace, 2013). He holds a BA in international relations and economics with a minor in statistics from Boston University and an MA in international relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Petro Diplomacy 2021: Gulf Countries in a Net-Zero World

For the seventh consecutive year, AGSIW convened its Petro Diplomacy conference.