VV Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran Writes and speaks on global energy policy, focused on the tradeoffs between energy access and climate goals.

“If we don't get energy right, we have no hope of tackling climate.”

The Spillover · September 2026

Asked what had stuck with him after opening bureaus on several continents, the former Economist energy editor contrasted the American argument about data centers and power bills with places where energy poverty is a leading cause of death. His conclusion is a ranking rather than a slogan: the two problems are not equals, and one is the precondition for the other.

The Spillover · 2026-09-01 Listen to the episode → More from Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran →

Transcript

The Spillover Around 10:19 into the episode

Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran

Exactly.

Rebecca Patterson

…that were aha for you. I know when I lived in Europe and Asia, suddenly I would see things in a different way, getting perspectives that helps me connect the dots when I'm thinking about global macro and global spillovers. So from your career to date, what have been a few of your aha moments?

Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran

…out and people have legitimate but different kinds of concerns. So I try to take a look at the question from multiple points of view and really thinking globally, not just locally, and trying to find what motivates people and how do we find common sense solutions. That's really something I'm hoping to bring more of into our thinking is climate is an enormous challenge, absolutely this century. If we don't get energy right, we have no hope of tackling climate. And so, finding common sense ways to make progress on how we use energy is an area where I think there is actually hope and more on that to come.

Rebecca Patterson

Yeah, I appreciate that. And I also think that one of the potential huge positives of AI is that it might help us discover new innovations on the energy side, be it supply or demand, that can help us tackle climate that maybe we couldn't have even imagined a few years ago. So, I'm crossing my…

Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran

Well, Rebecca, you outlined it pretty well. There are a lot of question marks about this deal, including some details of the deal we don't know, but the broad outlines, we generally get the idea. It's in line with what we heard at the early days of the Maduro snatch and grab operation, which were…

Rebecca Patterson

Yeah, when you say a couple years, I'm thinking, okay, a couple of years, we have midterms in a couple of months, and gasoline prices are still averaging over $4 a gallon and the U.S. voters don't like that. Plus, the strategic reserves in the United States, while they're not at dangerously low…

Speaker names from our own diarization · position estimated from where the line sits in the episode

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