Anna Creti, economist specializing in energy issues and director of the chair of economics and climate at the University of Paris Dauphine, estimates Wednesday March 9 on franceinfo that “the impact would be immediate” if France adopts an embargo on Russian hydrocarbons, as the United States announced on Tuesday on gas, because of the war in Ukraine.
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At European Union level, the commission for its part proposed on Tuesday to the 27 Member States to diversify their sources of supply, increase their stocks and reduce their energy consumption, rather than adopting a complete embargo.
franceinfo: If France adopts an embargo on Russian gas, as the United States does, could we survive without it?
Anna Creti: Mechanisms could be put in place quickly to replace gas in certain uses, but the impact would be immediate. The first would be that on prices. This type of measure, which creates a panic effect, as is the case now on commodity exchanges, only increases prices. There is no doubt the possibility of having to face prices even higher than those we have today. Secondly, there will no doubt be phenomena of rationing. You can’t imagine eliminating a source of supply and not feeling the impact. Can we survive without these sources of supply? Unfortunately no.
Can we do without Russian hydrocarbons in the long term?
France is one of the countries which has the most diversified gas supply sources. We have Kazakhstan, Norway, Algeria and a whole series of other suppliers which make it possible to fill the gap via LNG, liquefied gas. Production is sufficient. With the prices we have now, the gas and oil producing countries have a strong incentive to increase their rate of production, probably also to look for new oil and new gas which is currently underground.
The European Commission proposes to reduce Russian gas imports by two thirds within a year: is this realistic?
There is a series of measures that are, in my opinion, optimistic. I wonder why these measures were not already taken during the discussion of the Green Deal [plan vert européen]. We are faced today with a contradiction that is not new. We realize this under the blows of these conflicts of structural phenomena which have characterized the European economy for more than 80 years and which should have been called into question already a long time ago. I am a little pessimistic about the fact that we manage to keep this roadmap, even admitting that it has the consensus of European countries in eight months, whereas we have made much less ambitious objectives for ten years.
Can this crisis accelerate the transition to clean energy?
That’s what we want, even if it’s sad to come to this to promote the energy transition. Clean energies are obviously electric, also biogas, which is a non-fossil gas produced locally. There is also a new emphasis on decreasing consumption. This may be the first time that we have heard these needs emphasized with such force.