In this episode of Current History, I sit down with Santiago Creuheras, a Harvard Kennedy School fellow, former Mexican Deputy Minister for the Environment and Sustainable Energy, and an experienced practitioner of energy policy and international diplomacy.
Santiago has spent 25+ years in rooms where the world’s energy and environmental future is negotiated. He chaired the International Partnership for Energy Efficiency Cooperation (IPEEC), co-led the G20 Energy Transition Working Group, and advised the World Bank, International Development Bank (IDB), and the International Energy Agency (IEA). He’s also a professor and researcher at Harvard, where he teaches public policy alongside some of the field’s leading scholars. His current research is looking back at Mexico’s democratic transition a quarter century on to ask: what’s changed, what’s reversed, and what does it mean?
We cover a lot of ground. We talk about Mexico’s energy sector, the genuine potential, the political headwinds, and what the realistic path forward looks like. Then we turn to energy efficiency: the IEA’s so-called “first fuel”. Santiago chaired IPEEC and worked with the IEA on this directly, and he has a practitioner’s view of why the most cost-effective energy tool available to most countries still gets underused. We close by looking ahead: what does effective international energy governance look like in a world that’s more fragmented than the one these institutions were built for?
We examine whether multilateral frameworks like the G20 actually effective, or whether they’re empty exercises in optics. We look at the state of democracy across Latin America and the relationship between institutional health and the capacity to pursue serious energy policy. We also go inside the implementation question: why does good policy so often fail to produce results on the ground? And what does it look like when it actually works?
Santiago is someone who has seen this from every angle in government and academia. The conversation is grounded, candid, and full of lessons for anyone who thinks seriously about policy, energy, and how political change actually happens in the real world.
What You’ll Take Away
What Mexico’s energy transition looks like from the inside
Whether G20-level energy governance actually moves the needle
How democracy and institutional capacity shape a country’s ability to deliver on energy policy
Why policy implementation fails, and what the evidence says about making it work
Why energy efficiency is the most underused lever in most countries’ arsenals — and what changes that
What durable international energy governance looks like in a more fragmented world
If you follow energy policy, Latin American politics, or the mechanics of how international agreements translate (or don’t) into real-world change, this conversation will be worth your time.
About the Guest
Santiago Creuheras is a public policy scholar and sustainable development expert with over 25 years of experience across government, international institutions, and academia. He served as Deputy Minister for the Environment and Sustainable Energy of Mexico and chaired the International Partnership for Energy Efficiency Cooperation, elected by unanimous endorsement of all member countries.
He co-led the G20 Energy Efficiency and Energy Transitions Finance Working Group and has held senior advisory roles at the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank, the International Energy Agency, and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation. At Harvard, where he holds three master’s degrees, he is a Kennedy School JFK Fellow, a Weatherhead Visiting Scholar, and teaches alongside Professors Matt Andrews and Ricardo Hausmann. His research examines Mexico’s democratization process and the broader trajectory of Latin American democracy and sustainable development.
For Further Reading
G20 Energy Transition Working Group: Doubling Energy Efficiency
Energy Efficiency in Public Facilities Project - World Bank Group
Creating Public Value - Harvard Kennedy School
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