War, climate upending global energy markets

NEW YORK • Deadly heat and Russia's war in Ukraine are packing a brutal double punch, upending the global energy market and forcing some of the world's largest economies into a desperate scramble to secure electricity for their citizens.

This week, Europe found itself in a nasty feedback loop as record temperatures sent electricity demand soaring, but also forced sharp cuts in power from nuclear plants in the region because the extreme heat made it difficult to cool the reactors.

France on Tuesday detailed its plan to renationalise its electricity utility, EDF, to shore up the nation's energy independence by refreshing its fleet of ageing nuclear plants. Russia, which for decades has provided much of Europe's natural gas, kept Europe guessing as to whether it will resume gas flows later this week through a key pipeline.

Germany pushed the European Union to green-light cheap loans for new gas projects, potentially prolonging its reliance on the fossil fuel for decades longer.

Europe is not alone in feeling the effects of energy turmoil on a hotter planet. China ordered factories to cut back electricity use as extreme temperatures melted roofs, cracked roads and drove people into underground air-raid shelters. India struggled to find coal for its power plants earlier this year during an unusually early and prolonged heatwave fuelled by climate change.

The cascading effects of the war and the coronavirus pandemic on energy and food prices have punished the world's poorest citizens the most.

In Africa, 25 million more people were living without electricity now, compared with before the pandemic, the International Energy Agency estimated.

In the United States, history's largest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions, extreme temperatures scorched swathes of the south and the west as prospects of national climate legislation collapsed in the nation's capital.

At the same time, global oil companies reported soaring profits as oil and gas prices shot up.

In effect, the world's ability to slow down climate change has not only been undermined by the producers of the very fossil fuels that are responsible for climate change, but further challenged by deadly heat - a telltale marker of climate change.

At a global conference aimed at reviving climate action in Berlin, the German Foreign Minister, Ms Annalena Baerbock, called climate change the "biggest security challenge" facing the world and urged countries to use Russia's war as an impetus to more swiftly switch to renewable energy.

"Today, fossil energies are a sign of dependence and lack of freedom," she said on Tuesday.

At the same conference, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres put it more bluntly. "We continue to feed our fossil fuel addiction," he said.

The Berlin meeting took place against the backdrop of a bleak moment in global climate action. Without climate legislation in Washington, it is all but impossible for the United States to meet its national climate goal, nor can it exert much diplomatic pressure on China to slow down its increasing emissions.

With rich industrialised countries like the US and those in Europe unwilling to move away from fossil fuels, emerging economies are bucking pressure to do so.

After all, they argue, it is the wealthier nations of the world - not the poorer ones - that are mostly to blame for the generations of greenhouse-gas emissions that are today wrecking the climate and disproportionately harming poorer people.

That point was made loud and clear by the South African Environment Minister, Ms Barbara Creecy, at the Berlin conference this week.

"Developed countries must continue taking the lead with ambitious action," she said. "The ultimate measure of climate leadership is not what countries do in times of comfort and convenience, but what they do in times of challenge and controversy."

NYTIMES