@gregorsemieniuk.bsky.social
Associate Professor @ UMass Amherst | Political economy of the low-carbon transition, energy and resources in economic growth and development, inequality | Views are my own
German taxpayers are handing BMW €273m to once again attempt to push hydrogen-powered cars, when battery prices have once again dropped >50% in the past ~18 month and CATL is on its 5th-gen LFP battery.
CATL, BYD et al must be laughing all the way to the bank.
Sigh.
www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/w...
If guaranteeing essentials sounds radical, it speaks to how far we have drifted from democracy‘s core promises. Markets will not beat back the far right. An antifascist economics might. Mamdani provides a playbook for democrats around the world.
My latest
We took a Minsky-style approach to understanding the refinancing risks across the sector and how they all interact. In other words, we made a TON of T-Charts to show exactly how capital flows. Balance sheets gotta balance!
12.11.2025 13:34 — 👍 33 🔁 12 💬 2 📌 1
Public options for essentials, strategic price interventions, investment in housing and childcare — this is antifascist economics. It tackles the material conditions that make authoritarianism appealing.
In making life livable, democracy defends itself.
Unter der Inflation haben viele Menschen gelitten. Andere fuhren große Profite ein, erklärt Wirtschaftsprofessor Gregor Semieniuk @gregorsemieniuk.bsky.social im Interview mit @maxhsr.bsky.social.
08.11.2025 11:01 — 👍 6 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
Hat mich gefreut über die Energiepreiskrise 2022 in Europa und ihre Gewinner mit @maxhsr.bsky.social vom @surplusmagazin.bsky.social sky.social zu sprechen.
Interview:
www.surplusmagazin.de/energiekonze...
Zugrundeliegende Studie: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
No, it's still wrong. The rate of *temperature* increase has not decreased, in fact it has gone up. The rate of warming of past decade is about twice that between 80s and 2010. As for the argument that we have made progress with regards postulated end-of-century warming, I'm just too tired...
07.11.2025 17:57 — 👍 34 🔁 5 💬 3 📌 0
Text from a NYT article: Emissions have come down, but there's still far to go. Call this good-ish news. Lower emissions mean the arc of temperature increase has curved downward over the past 10 years. If countries stick to current policies, the global average temperature is projected to rise by 2.5 to 2.9 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.
The claim that “emissions have come down” in this @nytimes.com @sominisengupta.bsky.social article on where we are ten years post-Paris is FALSE.
Global emissions were at an all-time high in 2024.
As it stands this claim is misinformation. They need to issue a correction!
But windfall profits flow upward: in 2022, half of record fossil-fuel profits went to the richest 1%; only 1% reached the bottom half.
Link: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
If guaranteeing essentials sounds radical in 2025, it speaks to how far we’ve drifted from democracy’s core promise. Markets will not save democracy.
My new piece for @theguardian.com:
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
I think we should aim for something better than "not extinct"
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/28/c...
TLDR; The PSF has made the decision to put our community and our shared diversity, equity, and inclusion values ahead of seeking $1.5M in new revenue. Please read and share. pyfound.blogspot.com/2025/10/NSF-...
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Thanks for your interest, this paper is published open access and is online here: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
24.10.2025 18:19 — 👍 4 🔁 1 💬 2 📌 0
Killer chart from Gregor Semeiniuk and co-authors showing where in the income distribution pandemic windfall oil profits ended up.
24.10.2025 16:30 — 👍 39 🔁 12 💬 2 📌 1Wenn ihr heute von steigenden, springenden oder zulegenden #Öl-Preisen lest, denkt immer an diese Graphik und die in dieser visualisierten krassen Profite, die 2022ff. im Kontext der Energiekrise gemacht wurden.
#Profit-Inflation
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Even more of a case for a carbon tax on investment income:
bsky.app/profile/greg...
🚨 OUT NOW! Our new @science.org study led by @kohrathefog.bsky.social is the first to comprehensively quantify the health impacts of and inequities in outdoor air pollution exposure across all stages of the US oil and gas lifecycle: extraction ➡️ transport/storage ➡️ refining/processing ➡️ end-use. 🧵
24.08.2025 22:28 — 👍 91 🔁 59 💬 7 📌 6Good illustration of the need to look at the relative price changes that are happening in parallel with a "general" rise in inflation. The windfall gains associated with rising fossil fuel prices had a huge impact on inflation outcomes at different points in the income distribution.
08.10.2025 20:02 — 👍 4 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
Very important paper by @gregorsemieniuk.bsky.social that shows, as I have argued, that tax policy is climate policy. We cannot phaseout #fossilfuels without attacking their wealth.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
River or sankey diagram showing the allocation of profits from global oil and gas companies to quantiles of the US wealth size distribution via financial system intermediaries, such as asset managers, and categories of ultimate beneficiaries, such as business owners, pension funds and shareholders in listed companies. The scale is hundreds of billions of US dollars, and ultimately 50.4% of profits reaching the US personal wealth distribution go to the richest 1% of households.
🚨NEW PAPER🚨
We all know the 2022 energy price shock fueled the cost of living crisis. It also caused a profit bonanza for the very rich. We show the US reaped the largest profits ($377bn) of any country. 50% went to the richest 1%, only 1% to the bottom 50%. A🧵 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Who benefitted from energy price shocks - thread
08.10.2025 18:12 — 👍 24 🔁 7 💬 1 📌 0"The incremental U.S. fossil-fuel profits in 2022 relative to 2021 were enough to increase the disposable income of the wealthiest Americans by several percent and compensate a substantial part of their purchasing power loss from inflation that year, thereby exacerbating inflation inequality. "
08.10.2025 17:55 — 👍 19 🔁 8 💬 0 📌 0📢 must-read new paper! 👇
08.10.2025 17:28 — 👍 16 🔁 7 💬 0 📌 1Fantastic paper. Data by sector, geography, investor entity & distributional impact (in terms of wealth, race, education).
@gregorsemieniuk.bsky.social's conclusion below: "taxing incremental 2022 US profits as excess could've doubled clean energy investments or paid each US household $1,715".
If profits shape the energy transition we need to understand the biggest profit event this century: the 2022 oil and gas price spike.
Very happy our paper is now out in Energy Research & Social Science. Thread by lead-author @gregorsemieniuk.bsky.social 👇
Policy relevance: Excess profit taxes could make fossil fuel profits less volatile in the low-carbon transition. Revenues could finance investments or alleviate inflation impacts: taxing incremental 2022 US profits as excess could've doubled clean energy investments or paid each US household $1,715.
08.10.2025 16:50 — 👍 34 🔁 12 💬 3 📌 0
Fossil fuel profits also sharply increase inflation inequality.
Incremental 2022 fossil fuel profits over 2021 compensate several percent of 2022 inflation for the richest groups (triangles and squares), dwarfing differences in inflation due to differing consumption baskets (disks). 10/
Record fossil fuel profits reinforce existing racial & ethnic inequalities. Whites (64% of households) benefit disproportionately with claims on 87% of all profits. Blacks (14% of hholds) have a claim on only 3% of all profits, & Hispanics (10% of hholds) a mere 1%, mainly through pensions. 9/
08.10.2025 16:50 — 👍 30 🔁 13 💬 1 📌 0The distribution of profits worsens existing inequalities: 50% of US profit claims are held by the top 1% of wealth owners, and 84% by the top 10%.
The bottom half (66 million households) get 1% of the profits. The top 0.1%—a mere 131 thousand households—get 25x more than half of all Americans. 8/
