No longer green: how Europe is returning to fossil fuels

“The hydrocarbon economy has run its course,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in 2021. In the same year, European Commissioners developed a series of green strategies aimed at achieving climate neutrality by 2050. A little more than a year later, the EU had to revise its plans. Europe is going to abandon Russian gas, but it will not succeed this coming winter, writes The Guardian. 

Oil and gas prices collapsed during the covid-19 pandemic and gradually bounced back in 2021. However, after the start of the military operation on the territory of Ukraine, gas supplies from RUSSIA decreased, and its cost began to grow rapidly. In mid-August 2022, natural gas prices exceeded $3.1 thousand per 1 thousand cubic meters, which is 610% more than in the same period last year (data from the TTF exchange). As a result of rising raw material costs, European electricity benchmark prices rose by almost 300% in 2022 to record highs. 

The think tank Ember Climate estimates that European governments will spend at least €50 billion this winter on expanded new infrastructure and supplies of fossil fuels, including gas imported from abroad and coal to fuel previously mothballed power plants. Previously, the EU countries imported about 40% and more than 50% of coal from Russia. And now European countries seem to have no choice, writes The Financial Times. “As supply shrinks, fossil fuels will continue to be a necessity until alternative energy sources are sufficient to meet demand,” said Mike Preston, partner at law firm Cleary Gottlieb.