Vladimir Putin is using Russia’s hold over fossil fuel supplies to Europe as “a political and economic weapon” in the war in Ukraine, the world’s foremost energy adviser has said, presenting western governments with crucial questions over how they face down the threat to democracy while also heading off climate disaster.
Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency, said: “Nobody is under any illusions any more. Russia’s use of its natural gas resources as an economic and political weapon shows Europe needs to act quickly to be ready to face considerable uncertainty over Russian gas supplies next winter.”
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has prompted European governments, including the UK’s, to make a frantic reappraisal of their energy supplies – one that arguably should have come much sooner. The first outcome has been a fresh resolve in some countries – including from the UK business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng – to push for more renewable energy generation and energy efficiency to cut dependence on fossil fuels.
Kwarteng’s intervention – “The long-term solution is obvious: gas is more expensive than renewable energy, so we need to move away from gas,” he tweeted – was unexpectedly firm, cheering green campaigners who had feared that rightwing voices in the Tory party who have sought to make scrapping the net zero target a “culture war” issue were in the ascendant.
Doug Parr, the chief scientist for Greenpeace UK, said: “Kwasi Kwarteng has clocked it. Our dependence on gas is a problem, and warmer homes powered by renewables are the cheapest and quickest solution. Kwarteng must convince chancellor Rishi Sunak that we need a masterplan, and the money to get the UK off gas. We need to insulate our homes, roll out heat pumps and renewable power to rapidly address Putin’s grip on European gas markets, our sky-high energy bills, and the climate crisis unfolding before our eyes.”
Germany has announced plans to ramp up energy efficiency and renewable energy, and is considering delaying the closure of its remaining nuclear power stations. France’s Emmanuel Macron called for a “renaissance” of low-carbon nuclear power to secure domestic energy supplies. In the US, Joe Biden used his state of the union speech to bang the drum again for his proposed clean energy stimulus programme.
Paul Bledsoe, a former Clinton White House climate adviser now with the Progressive Policy Institute in Washington, said: “The Russian invasion of Ukraine greatly increases the likelihood that the US Congress will pass huge new clean energy incentives this year because of an increased focus on energy security. Such a massive expansion of zero-emission US energy will also free up more US natural gas to flow to Europe to displace Russian gas, which has far higher fugitive emissions of methane. Together these actions would represent a significant improvement not only in global energy geopolitics, but result in major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions as well.”
But as the war in Ukraine continues to rage, there is also a significant danger that – particularly if Putin goes further and cuts off gas supplies – governments could pivot the opposite way. As the IEA noted: “Other avenues are available to the EU if it wishes or needs to reduce reliance on Russian gas even more quickly … The major near-term option would involve switching away from gas consumption in the power sector via increased use of Europe’s coal-fired fleet, or by using alternative fuels such as oil within existing gas-fired power plants.”
The decision may be taken by private-sector companies with coal-fired power stations that were recently closed or scheduled to close and could be brought back on stream quickly, said Richard Howard, the research director at Aurora Energy Research. “The high gas prices being seen in the market will in any case create an economic incentive for generators to shift from gas power stations towards coal,” he said. A further complication is that Europe also depends on Russia for coal.
In the US, the opportunities to export gas from fracking, and coal for power stations, may also expand temptingly as fossil fuel prices rise, and to fill the gaps that open up as countries move away from Russian supplies.
Then there is the question of how much consumers will stand. Petrol prices in the US, as in many places around the world, are now at the highest in a decade and still rising. Phillip Braun, a professor of finance at Northwestern University in the US, said: “American consumers need to accept that rising gas prices are a necessary cost to help the Ukrainian people in the midst of their profound crisis.” Whether consumers will continue to pay this price for democracy has not yet been tested.
After years of grindingly slow progress in shifting away from coal and oil, if countries were to resume fossil fuel use under the impact of Russia’s war, it would spell disaster for attempts to cut greenhouse gas emissions. This week the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned of global devastation already under way and set to intensify if temperatures rise further, in what scientists termed “the bleakest warning yet”.
Tim Crosland, the director of Plan B, a climate campaign group, said the IPCC report showed that reaching for more fossil fuels as a response to Putin would only put the world in greater peril. “There is no option of ramping up fossil fuel production as a counter to Putin,” he said. “A strategy for deescalation of the war in Ukraine can and must be integrated with a strategy for the urgent and radical reduction of carbon emissions, starting with an end to new fossil fuel supply projects, as required to limit warming to 1.5C. Separate the two logics [of climate and dealing with the war] and it’s all over.”
These issues will come into sharp focus at the next UN climate meeting, Cop27, due to be held in Egypt in November. So far preparations have been unaffected, and diplomats privately note that climate negotiations have carried on through 30 years of political upheavals, including wars among UN members.
But the key questions over energy policy will need to be resolved long before countries meet again on the climate. Given the time it takes to change energy systems, as the IEA made clear, governments must prepare now for what next winter will bring.