No one should be writing a thank you card to President Putin, but his invasion of Ukraine may end up accelerating the world’s transition to clean energy. That was the message from three international energy experts recently.
While some countries have been burning more fossil fuels such as coal in response to natural gas shortages caused by the war, wrote The New York Times’ Brad Plumer, “that effect is expected to be short-lived, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its annual World Energy Outlook, a 524-page report that forecasts global energy trends to 2050… The agency now predicts that worldwide demand for every type of fossil fuel will peak in the near future.”
"Energy markets and policies have changed as a result of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, not just for the time being, but for decades to come," said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol.
"The energy world is shifting dramatically before our eyes. Government responses around the world promise to make this a historic and definitive turning point towards a cleaner, more affordable and more secure energy system."
As Plumer explained, “Many countries have responded to soaring prices for fossil fuels this year by embracing wind turbines, solar panels, nuclear power plants, hydrogen fuels, electric vehicles and electric heat pumps. In the United States, Congress approved more than $370 billion in spending for such technologies under the recent Inflation Reduction Act.”
Global clean energy investment is set to rise to more than $2 trillion a year by 2030, up by half from current levels, while "international energy markets undergo a profound reorientation in the 2020s as countries adjust to the rupture of Russia-Europe (energy) flows, the IEA said.
Global emissions of fossil fuels leading to climate change will peak by 2025, as coal use falls within the next several years, natural gas demand plateaus by 2030, and oil demand levels off in the middle of the next decade before falling.
"One of the effects of Russia’s actions is that the era of rapid growth in natural gas demand draws to a close," the IEA said, pointing to a rise in global demand for gas of less than five percent between last year and 2030.
Director-General Francesco La Camera of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) agrees with Birol. “In the mid- and long term, the Ukraine crisis will bring an acceleration to the energy transition because governments finally realize that going for renewables is not only good for the environment, jobs, GDP, but also good for ensuring higher energy independency," he said.
The head of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is singing from the same hymnal. "It's clear that this war in Ukraine will speed up our consumption of fossil energy and it's (also) speeding up this green transition," said Petteri Taalas, WMO’s secretary-general. "From a climate perspective, the war in Ukraine may be seen as a blessing,"
There are skeptics, though. At COP27, the research collaboration Climate Action Tracker asserted that nations scrambling this year to buy more natural gas to replace supplies from Russia are risking years of emissions that could thwart climate goals.
In any event, it behooves all countries and companies to press ahead with efforts to speed the transition from fossil fuels. That includes putting an honest price on carbon.