This week, Europe found itself in an unpleasant feedback loop as record temperatures sent electricity demand skyrocketing, but also forced sharp blackouts from nuclear power plants in the region as extreme heat made it difficult to cool reactors. France on Tuesday detailed its plan to renationalise its electricity company, EDF, to shore up the country’s energy independence by renewing its fleet of aging nuclear power plants. Russia, which for decades supplied much of Europe’s natural gas, kept Europe guessing whether it would resume gas flows later this week through a key pipeline. Germany has pushed the European Union to greenlight cheap loans for new natural gas projects, potentially prolonging its dependence on fossil fuels for decades longer. The cascading effects of war and the coronavirus pandemic on energy and food prices have punished the world’s poorest citizens the most. In Africa, 25 million more people now live without electricity than before the pandemic, the International Energy Agency estimates. Meanwhile, in the United States, the largest emitter of greenhouse gases in history, extreme temperatures scorched swaths of the South and West as the prospect of national climate legislation collapsed in the nation’s capital. At the same time, global oil companies reported increased profits as oil and natural gas prices soared. In fact, the world’s ability to slow climate change has not only been undermined by the producers of the very fossil fuels responsible for climate change, but has been further challenged by the deadly heat – a telltale indicator of climate change. At a global conference aimed at revitalizing climate action in Berlin, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock called climate change the “biggest security challenge” facing the world and urged countries to use Russia’s war as an impetus to switch more quickly to renewable energy sources. “Today, fossil fuels are a sign of dependency and lack of freedom,” he said on Tuesday. Germany relies on Russian natural gas for 35% of its energy needs. At the same conference, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres put it more bluntly. “We continue to feed our addiction to fossil fuels,” he said. The Berlin meeting comes amid a bleak moment in global climate action. Without climate legislation in Washington, it is all but impossible for the United States to meet its national climate goal, nor can it put much diplomatic pressure on China to slow its rising emissions.
Europe’s shift away from fossil fuels
The European Union has begun a transition to greener forms of energy. But economic and geopolitical considerations could complicate efforts.
China currently produces the largest share of global warming gases and plays a key role in the planet’s climate future: it burns more coal than any other country right now, but it also produces the largest share of the world’s new green technology, including solar panels and electric buses. A big question mark looms over whether European Union lawmakers will use the invasion of Ukraine to accelerate their transition away from fossil fuels, or whether they will simply import gas from places outside of Russia. The stakes are high. The EU’s own climate law requires the 27-nation bloc to cut its emissions by 55% by 2030. More coal plants are slated to close than ever before, and there is no evidence that Europe is returning to coal for good, even though some countries restarting coal plants to meet immediate energy needs. “Coal is not coming back,” read the title of a report published last week by Ember, a research group. EU lawmakers are also encouraging building owners to renovate older homes and businesses to improve energy efficiency. And under EU law, no new cars with internal combustion engines will be sold from 2035. If anything, analysts say, the current crisis calls attention to not doing more sooner. “We’ve seen some progress, but if we look at the big picture, it’s not enough,” said Hanna Fekete, a climate policy analyst at the NewClimate Institute, an organization in Cologne that promotes efforts to tackle climate change. “We missed so many opportunities for energy efficiency.” The biggest impact of the global energy crisis is on the world’s ability to slow climate change. The burning of fossil fuels is the main cause of global warming, as the greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere trap the sun’s heat, raising the average global temperature and fueling extreme weather events, including record heat. With rich industrialized countries such as the United States and those in Europe unwilling to move away from fossil fuels, emerging economies are under pressure to do so. After all, they argue, it is the world’s richest nations—not the poorest—that are primarily responsible for the generations of greenhouse gas emissions that are currently destroying the climate and disproportionately harming the poorest people. This point was made loud and clear by South Africa’s environment minister, Barbara Creecy, at the Berlin conference this week. “Developed countries must continue to take the lead with ambitious actions,” he said. “The ultimate measure of climate leadership is not what countries do in times of comfort and convenience, but what they do in times of challenge and controversy.” Rich countries have yet to provide the promised $100 billion in annual funding to help poor countries switch to renewable energy. Many already indebted countries are falling deeper into debt as they try to recover from extreme weather disasters exacerbated by climate change. Russia, one of the world’s largest oil and gas producers, invaded Ukraine at a time when energy prices were already on the rise. Late last year, oil and gas prices were high and rising, in part because U.S. oil and gas production had plummeted at the start of the coronavirus pandemic and never recovered. Russia began cutting supplies to Europe as early as last September, helping to push European electricity prices at the time to their highest levels in more than a decade. At the same time, demand for natural gas in Europe has rebounded as the economy recovers from pandemic shutdowns and mild weather that led to a drop in wind-generated electricity. In February, President Vladimir Putin of Russia invaded Ukraine, and Russia further cut gas flows to its European customers, starting with Bulgaria and Poland in April. Germany fears it will be next, as the country waits to see whether Gazprom, the state-owned Russian energy giant, will resume flows through the pipeline that links Siberian gas fields to the German coast. It was shut down on July 11 for what was supposed to be only 10 days of annual maintenance. Several European countries are currently struggling to fill their gas storage tanks in time to have enough energy to heat homes and run industry in winter. EU officials worry that if Russia does not resume gas flows, the bloc will not reach its 80% capacity target by early November. “The world has never seen such a major energy crisis in terms of its depth and complexity,” International Energy Agency chief Fatih Birol said last week.
