Energy Security Expert, United Nations
John M. Roberts is an energy security specialist with Methinks, focusing on the inter-relationship between energy, economic development, and politics. He is a member of the Advisory Board for the UN Economic Commission for Europe’s (UNECE) Project on Sustainable Energy, and a member of the UNECE Group of Experts on Gas. He is also a Senior Fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Centre in Washington, DC. Roberts has a particular expertise in the development of energy in Central Asia and the Caucasus and in the pipelines designed to connect the Caspian to China, Russia, India, and Europe. He is one of Europe’s leading energy security specialists and has testified to UK parliamentary committees on Caspian, Russian, Mideast, Turkish, and Kurdish energy security issues. His books include: Caspian Pipelines, published by the Royal Institute of International Affairs and Visions and Mirages: The Middle East in a New Era. He is also the author of a series of papers published by the UNECE in 2020 on the role of natural gas in the energy transition. In September 2015 he delivered the inaugural lecture, What is Energy Security? at the NATO Training School’s Energy Security Course in Oberammergau, Germany. He is currently working on such issues as Caspian and Russian gas deliveries to Europe; the development of new supply pipelines and interconnectors within Europe; and the energy security implications of gas discoveries in the Eastern Mediterranean.