Editorial: Vladimir Putin’s cynical extortion makes as eloquent a case for the clean energy transition as any environmental idealist
to cut gas usage by 15% as part of a phased move away from reliance on Russian supplies. But the deal is diluted by opt-outs and exceptions for various countries. Hungary, the EU state that is cosiest with the Kremlin, has not signed up at all.
The view in Brussels is that energy security is an issue that proves the importance of transnational collaboration and should add momentum to political, economic and strategic integration. That is true in theory. In practice, it brings new tensions between member states and aggravates old ones. Spain, for example, has invested in infrastructure to help it diversify its energy supply in ways that Germany has not.
It is not only German consumers who are facing a shock. The country’s politicians are struggling to adapt to the new reality in which an attitude to Russia that they proudly thought of as reasonable and diplomatic now looks like a colossal. That vulnerability is compounded by Germany’s decision, in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima accident in Japan, to phase out all nuclear power use. The wisdom of that move is also being queried.
The long-term solution to this challenge is clear enough. It requires an accelerated transition to renewable energy sources, which has the additional benefit of being somethingand the rest of the world urgently needs to do anyway in order to avert a climate catastrophe. But pressures of the short term push in the opposite direction – towards reviving dirty coal-burning power plants and deals with other nasty authoritarian states that have hydrocarbon resources to export.
That argument already has a purchase in many European countries. It is not yet a prominent feature of the current Tory leadership contest but it is there,
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