EU energy response threatens its climate goals

The measures proposed by the European Commission (EC) to speed up the disconnection of Russian gas and cushion the escalation of prices in the electricity market place geopolitical urgency in the first line of energy action and take priority away from the climate objectives of the European Union .

The Community Executive believes it is possible, although difficult, for the European Union (EU) to reduce its gas dependency on Russia by 66% in one year through increased imports of liquefied natural gas and hydrogen, improving efficiency and accelerating the deployment of renewables. That is the path to separate from Russian gas in 2030.

That date is key, because the EU set itself a legally binding obligation less than a year ago to reduce its CO2 emissions by at least 55% by the end of the decade compared to 1990 levels, and Brussels has repeatedly boasted of ambition and climate vanguard before the international community.

Coal

The desire to move away from Russian gas and the exorbitant price of this raw material are making coal fashionable again, a hydrocarbon that releases more CO2 than gas but which, in the context of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, is cheap and geopolitically attractive.

Germany, for example, has reactivated coal-fired generation plants, a fossil fuel responsible for 40% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

“It is a sovereign decision of each Member State to say: ‘OK, we will continue a little longer with nuclear or with coal’”, said this week the EC vice president responsible for the Green Deal, Frans Timmermans, who insists that countries will have to fulfill the EU commitment by 2030.

Unless the energy sobriety of consumers plays an extraordinary role, and the High Representative for Foreign Policy of the EU, Josep Borrell, has called on Europeans to “turn down the heating in your houses”, burning more coal will result in the EU emitting more CO2 in the short term.

In return, the Twenty-seven will have to deepen the cut as the decade progresses, and as the renewable generation parks whose construction is to be accelerated now become operational, since the 2030 objective is mandatory by law.

This substitution of coal for gas had already been taking place globally. The International Energy Agency (IEA) reported on Tuesday that global CO2 emissions registered an increase “historical” of 6% in 2021 because the prohibitive price of gas means that more coal is being burned, which releases more carbon dioxide.

However, this increase in emissions does not deviate from the expected trend, since some projections prior to the escalation in energy prices last year already pointed to a global peak in emissions around 2025 and then gradually reduced.

Petroleum

The measures proposed by the EC focus on reviewing price formation in the electricity market and also on getting rid of Russian gas, which accounts for around 40% of the consumption of that hydrocarbon in the EU.

But Brussels has not gotten involved, for now, with coal or oil, raw materials that also register record prices and that the EU imports from Russia by 46% and 27%, respectively.

On the other side of the Atlantic, Washington has indeed acted against the three Russian hydrocarbons – gas, coal and oil – by prohibiting all imports. But the starting situation is radically different.

The United States is a large energy producer with little exposure to Russia, while the EU is a net importer and depends heavily on the country presided over by Vladimir Putin, from whom it bought energy for 148 billion euros in 2021.

In any case, the IEA has already put oil in the spotlight and, just like last week, it presented a plan for the EU to reduce its dependence on gas, in which it has inspired the European Commission, that agency of the The OECD is now working on another block of guidelines to move away from Russian crude.

“In oil, Russia is also the leading exporter, but there is a world market there. We are talking to producing countries to get more oil onto the market. Next week, we will publish a ten-point contingency plan. We can act in the transport sector”, the director of the IEA, Fatih Birol, said this Wednesday in Paris, surrounded by European ministers and commissioners and businessmen from the energy sector.