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WORLD VIEW 11 March 2022 The geopolitics of fossil fuels and renewables reshape the world To navigate the long road to net zero, energy researchers must grapple with the lessons of history.

By Helen Thompson0 Helen Thompson Helen Thompson is professor of political economy in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge, UK. Her book

Disorder: Hard Times in the 21st Century was published last month.

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Twitter Facebook Email Access through your institution Buy or subscribe With 84% of our energy still coming from oil, coal and gas, much of the transition to renewable energy sources lies

ahead. Just because a different future will arrive, it doesn’t meant that the present will simply cede the stage. Renewables do not change the centrality of energy to geopolitics. Nor, given

that the energy transition will be a long one, will it quickly end the geopolitics of fossil fuels.

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Nature 603, 364 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-00713-3

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The author declares no competing interests.

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