Andris Piebalgs is a former Commissioner for Energy (Barroso I) and for Development (Barroso II), and currently with the prestigious Florence School of Regulation (European University Institute) in Fiesole, Italy. For what we were interested in this dialogue, it was  noteworthy that he is Chair of the International Methane Emissions Observatory (IMEO) Implementation Committee under UNEP.Earlier this year Piebalgs co-authored Cost-effective decarbonisation study 2022, a work constructed before the war in Ukraine, yet very agile in catching matters of costs in the energy transition. Keeping energy affordable, secure and competitive while aggressively pursuing decarbonisation will be challenging, but now, with the necessity of weaning off Russian hydrocarbons, truly imperative.Raul Cazan

Julian Popov, ex-minister of environment of Bulgaria is our guest today. He is an expert on low carbon economy and energy security in South East Europe. He is a European Climate Foundation (ECF) Fellow, Chairman at Buildings Performance Institute Europe (BPIE), Energy Security Adviser to the Bulgarian President. Founding Vice Chancellor of the New Bulgarian University, Founding Board Member of the Institute of Sustainable Transition and Development, Former Chairman of the Bulgarian School of Politics, just to name a few.Russia announced that it would stop gas supplies to Bulgaria and Poland. Recently Finland joined the group. How big a problem is that?It depends very much on the Bulgarian, Finnish and Polish governments. All countries can survive without Russian gas for some time. They have also options for alternative gas supplies. The announcement is also an opportunity. Indeed, the Poles replied defiantly to Russia’s move: “who cares?”Quick fix: reduce the overall gas consumption. Countries can do that with a combination of renewables, energy efficiency, heat pumps, replacement of appliances, demand response and other measures. All these measures could be implemented before winter. Russia is declaring an energy war on Europe. The right response is a decisive counterattack. It would be very unwise if that counterattack is only launched through imports of liquified gas - LNG from across the seas. It will simply not work. In any case, the Russian announcement is a great opportunity. And that opportunity lies in the acceleration of the EU Green Deal, that is the greening of the whole European economy.Raul Cazan

We were all absorbed by the duel of apocalyptic newsworthiness between Macron and the extreme right. Yet, this spring brought us a resounding election victory of a green party in the small ex-Yugoslav country of Slovenia.  Robert Golob and his Freedom Party founded earlier this year defeated the populist politician, prime minister Janez Jansa. Golob’s environmentalist centre-left party won about a third of the votes in the parliamentary elections, with Jansa’s Slovenian Democratic party (SDS) taking less than a quarter, a much wider margin that all opinion polls had predicted.Slovenian electorate avoided the “Hungarianisation” of Slovenia, a reference to Jansa’s tendency to harshly repel critics and lash against independent media. He had a close relationship with Viktor Orban, Hungary’s authoritarian and illiberal leader. All the election dynamics were overanalyzed in the European media. However, of greater importance is the environmental and climate agenda of the freshly elected Slovenian prime minister. And, in truth, Golob is the only straightforwardly green prime minister currently on the European continent, if not on the whole globe.Borut Tavcar, my old friend from the main Slovenian daily, Delo, will enlighten us in matters related to Golob’s policy, political philosophy and agenda. Borut is the editor of the environment and sustainability section of the newspaper. Since the COP in Cancun in 2010 we met annually in various green events all across Europe.Raul Cazan

Ilaria Conti is Head of Gas at the Florence School of Regulation.Her main fields of expertise concern EU institutional relations and EU electricity and gas regulation.She spent about 9 years in Brussels, working for the the Permanent Representation of Italy at the EU, the United Nations and, from 2005 until 2013, for EFET, the “European Federation of Energy Traders” covering various positions within the association. Professor Conti joined the Florence School of Regulation (FSR) in 2015 as Energy Policy Deputy and in 2017 she was appointed Head of the new FSR Gas area.She is author and co-author of many scientific articles and position papers, actually, until 5 years ago she was the Managing Editor of the publication “Economics of Energy & Environmental Policy” that belongs to the International Association for Energy Economics.We met in qualities of master and disciple (I was the student, obviously) at the European University Institute in Florence – in the beautiful little town of Fiesole up on the hills west of Florence - where you, professor, were part of the teaching staff in a course that dealt with high quality regulation in areas such as climate and energy.We tackled:1. High gas prices in Europe: a matter for policy intervention?Issues: - Are gas storages still able to provide the necessary flexibility and contribute to hedging price spikes in the new context given by the war in Ukraine? Is it welcome a new gas storage legislation in the EU that provides a mandatory minimum level of gas in storage facilities ahead of the winter 2022/2023 and for the following winter periods?- Solutions for a new gas procurement in Europe.- Acceleration of alternative energy uptake as to wean off not merely Russian gas, but natural gas altogether (foresight)2. Taxonomy and natural gas: a fact-based approach to drive sustainable solutionsIssues:- Issues related to the delegated act from January 2022 - lack of public consultation;- Will the targets under Paris Agreement be met?- How will we ever know if the best available technologies related to gas are actually sustainable?Raul Cazan

Francesco “Frank” Femia is Co-Founder and Research Director at the Center for Climate and Security and the Council on Strategic Risks, as well as Co-Founder and Senior Advisor at the IMCCS - that stands for International Military Council on Climate and Security. He is a notorious commentator on how national security of America and its allies, defense and intelligence communities address climate change-related threats.Recently, Frank and Caitlin Werrell, his wife, contributed to a book edited by SciencesPo in Paris, France, and titled The Hot War - Strategic Issues of Climate Change with a chapter dedicated to security and climate in the East Mediterranean. Our conversation, however, revolved primarily around Russia’s failures as a petro-state and its invasion of Ukraine and, consequently, war crimes and genocide, destruction, environmental disasters and food crises. Well, the issues of the day…