A look back at the repercussions of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which marked the world in 2022.
On November 8, 2011, a handful of radiant European leaders, including Angela Merkel and Dimitri Medvedev, turned a large valve to symbolically open the flow of natural gas in the pipe called Nord Stream, which runs 1,200 km under the Baltic Sea, from Russia to Germany. A decade later, the smiles have faded and the current is no longer flowing.
It has been said a thousand times this year: Europe is paying the price for its dependence on Russian gas. In 2021, the continent imported 40% of its natural gas from the country of Vladimir Putin. In a few months, the allies of Ukraine had to seek by all means to reduce their imports. As a natural consequence on the markets, the prices of natural gas and electricity have reached unprecedented heights.
On the menu this winter, energy sobriety. The lights of the Eiffel Tower go out a little earlier in the evening. Switzerland is considering banning the charging of electric vehicles in certain circumstances. Finland asks to lower the temperature of saunas. For less affluent households, the crisis takes a darker turn. In the UK, people have taken to the streets to denounce gas and electricity tariffs that are holding them by the throat.
The crisis is hitting everywhere in Europe, because energy markets know no borders. “From the end of the 1990s, the European Union [UE] pushed to liberalize the electricity market, then the gas market,” recalls Maya Jegen, political scientist from the University of Quebec in Montreal, energy specialist. Last Monday, after lengthy negotiations, the EU partially reversed course: it introduced a natural gas price cap mechanism.
Although Europe succeeded in filling its natural gas reservoirs last fall, fears about the onset of winter have not dissipated. Consumption will depend a lot on the weather. In addition, deliveries of liquefied natural gas (LNG), essential according to current plans, will have to arrive on time. After work carried out in an emergency, Germany is preparing to inaugurate maritime LNG terminals to receive the first LNG carriers in January.
This is a major trend accelerated by the war in Ukraine: natural gas is becoming a traded product on the world market place. International gas pipeline projects are underway in Europe and its periphery, particularly in the North Sea and from Azerbaijan. But, above all, this volatile resource breaks free from its pipes and, in liquefied form, crosses the continents to sell itself to the highest bidders.
With its gleaming euros, the Old Continent thus buys LNG from Qatar or the United States that other less well-off countries will no longer be able to obtain. “The cake doesn’t necessarily get bigger,” says Ms.me Jegen. And now that China is pulling out of its zero-COVID policy, many observers believe its economic rebound could lead to increased demand for energy.
To avoid letting their populations shiver, European governments are forced to backtrack on their environmental aims, at least for the time being. Berlin has thus postponed the retirement of its last nuclear power plants. In terms of fossil fuels, Paris had to reopen a coal-fired power station that had gone out of business. Similarly, Amsterdam resolved to lift a cap on the use of coal.
All hope for the climate is not lost, however. “The first truly global energy crisis, triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has given an unprecedented boost to renewable energy,” notes the International Energy Agency (IEA) in a recent report. The organization predicts that the growth of renewable energy worldwide by 2027 will be “much faster than expected a year ago”.
Until recently, the opposition of local communities to wind or solar projects in their backyards posed a significant obstacle to the development of renewable energies in Europe, underlines Mme Jegen. As a result of the war, countries are now easing their regulatory regimes in this area. “We talk so much about the energy crisis, about the difficulty of getting through the winter, that perhaps people will be more ready to accept renewable energy infrastructures. »
See you a decade from now to assess the effect of the war in Ukraine on the energy trajectory of Europe and the world.