In response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Western countries imposed financial sanctions in Moscow and theembargo on oil exports. In retaliation, Russia has cut off its massive gas supplies to Europe, threatening to leave it out in the cold for the winter. However, the prospect of a catastrophic energy crisis on the old continent has been weakened thanks to the emergency measures set up by governments and European institutions, solutions also favored by exceptionally mild temperatures during most of autumn and winter.
However, you need to be very careful: Europe is by no means out of the danger created by Russia and the picture for next winter remains very uncertain. Not being able to count on Russian gas and in competition for liquefied natural gas (LNG) with China just exiting its zero-covid policy, the risk for European energy security is real. For this reason, the EU must prolong the measures to contain gas demand as well as, of course, accelerate the energy transition as much as possible.
The new energy flows
In the meantime, one is emerging from the Euro-Russian divorce new map of energy flows. First of all, the radical change of the Russian position in the global energy markets and the reorientation for many countries of their commercial ties towards security logics is evident. With the outbreak of war, European countries forged alliances with new energy partners and consolidated traditional ones. THE
the bond with United States, Azerbaijan, Qatar, Norway, Algeria and many other African countries has strengthened. At the same time, opportunities and risks have arisen, both political (among the partners there are those who are more consistent with European interests and those who are less, those who are institutionally more solid and those who are less) and environmental (the level of attention paid to climate policies and coherence with the green vision of Europe is not the same for everyone). Mosca in the meantime it is trying to redirect part of the volumes previously destined for Europe towards Asia, but there are still infrastructural, administrative and economic bottlenecks which could slow down this desire.
Energy poverty and inequalities
The energy consequences of the war have also exacerbated the social inequalities within countries. Rising energy prices have contributed to high inflation and rising fuel prices have spilled over into food marketspushing many vulnerable households into poverty, forcing some factories to reduce production, and slowing economic growth in many countries.
Also, the war sharpened the gap between developed and developing countries. On the one hand the industrialized countries, intent on accelerating their energy transition (think of the strategy RepowerEU presented by the Commission, or the debated US Inflation Reduction Act). On the other hand, emerging or developing economies, which in many cases had given gas an important role in reducing the use of the most polluting coal and which may now have to curb their plans.
In fact, since the outbreak of the war, the diversion of LNG flows from less industrialized countries to Europe has exacerbated the energy poverty in many emerging and developing countries (think Bangladesh, Pakistan or Sri Lanka). Given the reduced LNG capacity that can be released in the short term, tensions risk becoming even more acute in the coming months, aggravating energy poverty and weakening the climate strategy in many of these countries. The European race for alternative gas in this year of war may also for this reason appear inconsistent with the appeals for faster global decarbonisation, a message of which the EU is – rightly – the spokesperson.
A similar trend can be seen in the imbalances of the investments in clean energy – which continue to be directed for the vast majority towards industrialized countries (and towards China). The promises of climate finance made in the past by the industrialized countries have also always been disregarded. It is therefore absolutely necessary to rebuild trust between countries by making more money available to developing ones to support the broadest and cleanest access to energy possible. In these two very delicate years that await us, the industrialized countries, starting with the EU, will have to try to deal with these dynamics in a more orderly manner.
Cover photo EPA/STEPHANIE LECOCQ