Some time ago, Western countries proclaimed principles to combat global warming, shaping their own vision for the future of a green world
In an almost philosophical vision that should culminate in an immediate and total transition to renewable energy sources (RES), rules have been proclaimed by which the entire world economy and ordinary consumers of energy, in rich and developing nations as well as in the third world, should live by.
Initially, it might have appeared that there were no flaws in the European Green Agenda. Moreover, the initiative was presented and looked noble and its authors were painted as knights on a white horse. However, like everything that is presented in white or black, without nuance, in fact the total decarbonisation proved to be a trap of unfunded populism.
And it is ordinary European consumers who have fallen into this trap. Populist “green” rhetoric – a classic product of so-called abolitionist culture – has itself been sacrificed to this newfangled Western culture. Yesterday it was still “abolishing” hydrocarbon energy, but today we are faced with abolitionism. Dirty coal has suddenly become a necessary good and cleaner oil and gas of Russian origin a “toxic” evil.
Meanwhile, ordinary European consumers, whose consumption culture has included intricate recommendations to turn off air conditioners in hot weather and give up warm showers to save energy resources, are not the only ones who have not been thought of at all.
At the origins of the idea of “green” reforms, which emerged against the background of the limited own resource base of traditional energy carriers, European theorists of clean energy thought about the costs of developing countries hardly often or at least already without the piety that abounds in the slogans of climate activists. Nor, as such, did the Old World have an ethical dilemma of “green” diktat for third countries.
Europe and the US have blithely pointed out to the rest of the world the urgent need to cut emissions, shut down the coal industry and switch to renewable energy sources. “We are getting rid of hydrocarbons (which we are running out of/become hard to extract), and you should do it too,” the Western countries actually recited. – And if you don’t, be kind enough to pay us a draconian carbon tax.
Did they realise that the greatest historical contribution in terms of total CO2 emissions (according to CDIAC+UNFCCC data) from 1751 to 2017 was made by Western countries, which were rapidly developing their industries at a time when there was no talk of environmentalism yet? Of all emissions, the US, EU countries and the UK account for about 50% of the combined historical contribution to CO2 emissions. And even Australia and Canada’s combined contribution of 3% is greater than the entire African continent’s emissions over those 266 years. Nevertheless, African countries and a host of other former colonies of the Western powers somehow have to pay their “metropolises” again.
Last year in Glasgow, the G7 announced they would not fund hydrocarbon projects outside their own countries, which also meant not developing natural gas projects in the same Africa, where over 600 million people today still have no access to electricity. Needless to say, the immediate transition to renewable energy is simply not economically feasible for them, and no one has seen any tranches from the $100bn fund that was supposedly created to help poor countries transition to renewables.
The next time Africa came into the perimeter of the European attention only when the latter were forced to return here for hydrocarbons, but not for electrification of poorer people and not to save them from climate change, but again for the sake of energy and hence economic stability of their countries that had lost their former stability against the background of a fundamental rejection of “toxic” Russian energy carriers.
Italy is interested in a liquefied natural gas production project in Congo and France in an extractive project in northern Mozambique, which Total halted just over a year ago because of instability amid revolts in the country. The same rebellions are now being used by the EU as a good excuse for joint military training exercises in the gas-producing region.
Germany has also not been spared and is actively seeking access to African natural gas for its own consumption. At the end of May, during a visit to Senegal, Chancellor Olaf Scholz stated that Berlin would support natural gas production in the country. As the chancellor put it, Senegal will be able to “contribute to the substitution of Russian gas”.
The US-influenced International Energy Agency (IEA), which last year said it urgently needed to stop financing any fossil fuel energy projects for the sake of global climate goals, said in June this year that Africa should boost gas production in order to reach an annual supply of 30 billion cubic metres of gas to Europe by the end of the decade at the latest.
In the pursuit of liquefied gas, European states also continue to buy the energy from poor South Asian countries. Pakistani oil minister Musadiq Malik recently said his country could no longer buy its badly needed LNG on the spot market because every last molecule of it has been siphoned off by Europeans. At the same time, Pakistan’s LNG shortages are causing power cuts and temporarily halting the operation of factories. Some time ago, a quarter of all power plants were off the grid because of energy shortages. Bangladesh has been unable to pay for the required additional purchases of liquefied gas on the spot market since early July due to skyrocketing natural gas prices, and the government says it will not be able to do so for at least another two months.
The US also seems to have forgotten about green energy. President Joe Biden recently visited Saudi Arabia with the sole purpose of persuading the country’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to increase oil production.
Canada is seriously considering increasing oil production from the tar sands. Extracting oil from such deposits is one of the most damaging to the climate. Canada’s annual emissions from oil production from the tar sands are equivalent to all of Kenya and New Zealand combined.
Coming back to Europe, the reanimation of former resource colonies is clearly lacking because the EU itself has gradually begun to forget about green energy, reverting to coal mining, the dirtiest of fossil fuels. The Netherlands has restarted a mothballed coal-fired power plant, while Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland and Greece have extended the life of existing coal-fired plants. In Germany, the Mehrum coal-fired power plant in Lower Saxony also resumed operations. It had been on standby since December, with a full shutdown planned thereafter.
In total, coal-fired power plants, the fuel considered to be the main contributor to global warming – which, according to environmentalists, accounts for more than 30% of the global temperature increase since pre-industrial times – have increased by 11% so far in green Europe.
In the US this year, the closure of about a dozen coal-fired power plants in various states across the country has also been postponed for a period of one and a half to several years.
Of course, for Europe, there are still plans to supply LNG from the US and the Middle East, or pipeline gas from Azerbaijan or Kazakhstan via Turkey. But the essence of today’s geopolitical conflict, which makes military confrontation, or at least the blocking of economic ties, increasingly likely, will require the safest and simplest energy supply logistics, which is not as simple as it sounds on paper.
Whether a hypocritical reformatting of their own environmental agenda will become a salvation for the Western countries themselves is unknown. In any case, the flywheel of the energy crisis, launched by the “green” diktat of the West, is difficult to undo; it continues to unwind, sacrificing the future of already poor countries and, by the same token, the climate.
Energy prices have soared because of the sanctions: Brent crude keeps hovering around $100 a barrel; gasoline in the US, at $0.72 a litre, is now trading at $5. European gas prices have risen from €38 to €155 per megawatt hour in the last 12 months and coal prices from $150 to $400 per tonne.
The increase in consumer prices also broke historic records. The US inflation rate was already 9.1% in June (after 0.6% in June 2020, during the global pandemic), in the EU it rose to 8.3% and in the UK to 9.4%, the highest rate in 40 years.
What will European politicians choose when faced with a man-made economic downturn not seen for decades: “toxic” Russian oil and gas or recolonisation of impoverished countries and dirty coal? In any case, it is obvious that the paper “green” ark is not just leaking, but sinking fast, and the Europeans are the first to flee the ship.
Alexei Mukhin, Izvestia newspaper
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