A group of Ukrainian women demonstrate to call for further action against Russia near the European Commission’s headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.
Thierry Monas | Getty Images News Getty Images
LONDON – Reflecting on energy markets just over a month after Russia’s pressure on Ukraine, Saudi Arabia’s top energy official said: “Look what’s happening today, who’s talking about climate change now?”
Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman’s comments in late March were in fact a repetition of his address to the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, last November, when he argued that the world could reduce greenhouse gas emissions without give up hydrocarbons.
Summing up his views on energy security and the climate crisis, Abdulaziz told CNBC that the world’s largest oil exporter would not deviate from fossil fuel production. “We are for oil and gas production and – hallelujah – for the use of coal.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine is now on the verge of entering its fourth month, raising concerns about what the conflict over food, energy and global climate goals means.
The G-7 has warned that Russia’s invasion has led to “one of the worst food and energy crises in recent history”, threatening the world’s most vulnerable.
For my part, since I am still here in Ukraine and I have seen everything here from the very beginning, I would say that our first security is the security of life.
Svetlana Krakowska
Climate scientist
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said the Kremlin’s attack on Ukraine is likely to have serious consequences for global heating targets, especially as many countries turn to coal or liquefied natural gas imports as alternative sources of Russian energy.
Guterres described this short-sighted rush to fossil fuels as “madness” before warning that “humanity’s addiction to fossil fuels is a mutually guaranteed destruction.”
Six months after the end of COP26, when negotiators left the UK with a sense of growing progress, the global energy picture has changed dramatically.
In short, Russia’s invasion put the planned energy transition at a crossroads. The result that politicians are facing is that the abolition of fossil fuels is vital to avoid a catastrophic climate scenario.
The head of the UN said that instead of the countries “pushing the brakes” on the decarbonisation of the world economy after the Russian invasion, “now is the time to put the metal pedal to the future of renewable energy.”
Energy security against energy transition
Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has pushed the issue of energy security to the top of the political agenda. In fact, one of the most pressing challenges facing European leaders today is how to break their dependence on Russian energy while speeding up the fight against the climate crisis.
However, this challenge is compounded by the fact that many European countries rely heavily on Russian oil and gas.
Ukrainian authorities have repeatedly called on the EU to stop funding the Russian invasion by imposing an immediate ban on imports of Russian oil and gas.
Attila Kisbenedek Afp | Getty Images
Speaking to CNBC in Kyiv, Ukraine’s leading climatologist Svetlana Krakowska made it clear that survival, not energy security, was a top priority for people living in the country.
“For my part, since I am still here in Ukraine and I see everything here from the very beginning, I would say that our first security is the security of life,” Krakowska said. Earlier, she told CNBC that the main driver of the climate emergency and the main cause of the Russian war stem from humanity’s dependence on fossil fuels.
“The longer we continue our dependence on these fossil fuels, the more we procrastinate [climate] action, the less we are sure, “Krakowska said.
The burning of fossil fuels, such as coal, oil and gas, is a major driver of the climate crisis, and researchers have repeatedly stressed that limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius will soon be unattainable without immediate and profound reductions in all sectors.
This temperature limit is recognized as a crucial global target, as so-called tipping points become more likely beyond this level. Turning points are thresholds at which small changes can lead to dramatic changes in the entire life support system on Earth.
We can respond much faster on the demand side than on the supply side – and we don’t hear enough about it.
Michael Lazar
Director of the US Office of the Stockholm Environmental Institute
World governments have agreed in the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius and to continue efforts to limit the rise in temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius. For the latter, the International Energy Agency has warned that new oil and gas projects are not possible.
Krakowska, who heads the Laboratory of Applied Climatology at Ukraine’s Hydrometeorological Institute, said that while it is currently difficult to assess the climate impact of the Russian invasion, there are already clear examples of environmental destruction.
For example, Krakowska said she had watched with some concern the large sections of forest fires that were burning uncontrollably in Siberia, noting that Russian troops who usually fight those fires had been relocated to the Ukrainian front line.
Forest fires remain unchecked in Siberia, Russia. This aerial photograph was taken on July 27, 2021, showing smoke rising from a forest fire.
Dimitar Dilkov Afp | Getty Images
Forest fires in Siberia last month were found to be more than twice as large as in the same period in 2021, the environmental group Greenpeace told CNBC, citing satellite data. In what becomes an annual phenomenon of climate collapse, burning trees in Siberia triggers extreme carbon pollution while melting methane-rich permafrost.
“This war is actually causing so many devastating consequences and is only exacerbating the climate crisis,” Krakowska said. She reiterated the Ukrainian government’s call on the EU to stop funding the Russian invasion by imposing an immediate ban on imports of Russian oil and gas.
Why don’t we talk about search?
For some, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the resulting energy crisis should be seen as a harbinger of how countries think about oil use.
“We can react much faster on the demand side than on the supply side – and we don’t hear enough about it,” Michael Lazarus, director of the US office at the Stockholm Environmental Institute, a nonprofit research firm, told CNBC. via video call.
In late March, the IEA published a 10-point plan to reduce oil demand, recommending policies such as reducing speed limits on highways by at least 10 kilometers per hour, working from home to three days a week when possible without cars. Sunday for the cities.
The energy agency said imposing measures like these would help reduce the price pain experienced by global consumers, reduce economic damage, shrink Russia’s hydrocarbon revenues and help move oil demand to a more sustainable path.
“While some efforts are behavioral or cultural challenges, whether it’s changing speed limits or changing the temperature in our homes, these things can happen and what we’ve seen is the public support movement,” Lazarus said. .
“People want to do something. “People want to contribute, and this reduces the cost and vulnerability of households to invest in energy efficiency and conservation, and helps free up resources for the rest of the world to cope with this moment,” Lazarus said. “This is really the time for a dramatic search effort.”
How about the price?
In early April, the world’s leading climate scientists warned that the fight to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius had reached “now or never” territory.
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has confirmed that in order to keep global temperatures below this key threshold, warming emissions must be halved by the end of the decade.
“We have a contradiction here,” said Jose Manuel Barroso, president of Goldman Sachs International and former president of the European Commission, at an event on May 10 entitled “The conflict in Ukraine and the transition to clean energy in Europe.”
“While in the medium and long term, everyone agrees that the less dependent on fossil fuels, the better. The question is how expensive it will be – and that’s why I think there is a risk of a backlash. “I will even say that there is a risk that the accompanying damage from this war in Ukraine is the climate program,” Barroso said.
The IPCC is unequivocal about the so-called “cost” of the global struggle to ensure a viable future: it is not as expensive as we might think.
“Without taking into account the economic benefits of reduced adaptation costs or avoided climate impacts, global gross domestic product (GDP) will be only a few percentage points lower in 2050 if we take the necessary action to limit warming to 2 ° C (3.6 °). F) or lower than maintaining current policies, “said IPCC Working Group III Co-Chair Priyadarshi Shukla on 4 April.
– Lucy Handley of CNBC contributed to this report.
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