The Ukraine war is no excuse for endless fossil fuel expansion
At the close of the hottest year in history, delegates from around the world gathered at climate talks in Dubai in December and agreed, finally, on one thing: that the time had finally come for “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner”. It was the first time in three decades of climate negotiations that diplomats had used the F-words, and it seemed like a breakthrough of sorts.
Now we’re going to find out if they meant it.
The president of the United States – which is the biggest fossil fuel producer on planet Earth – is poised to make a decision: should his government keep on granting export licenses to companies that want to build new terminals to send liquefied natural gas (LNG) around the world. The potential scale of this buildout is almost unbelievable. The US is already the biggest gas exporter on Earth, but if the industry gets what it wants, the LNG it exports each year will be enough to power half a billion homes.It will produce more greenhouse gases than everything that happens in Europe. Bloomberg this week called it “the world’s final wave of fossil-fuel megaprojects”. It’s the ultimate lock-in to dirty energy.
Biden could block all that, simply by halting the licensing process while the Department of Energy recalculates its old formulas for what constitutes the “public interest”. If his government meant what it signed in Dubai it has no choice (and former secretary of state John Kerry was instrumental in inserting that language). But the fossil fuel industry is engaged in a last-ditch effort to storm ahead with this boondoggle. And they’re using Europe, and Ukraine, as their excuse.
After Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Europe did need some short-term supplies of gas to make up for what it was no longer getting from Russia. The US supplied much of it – it already has sufficient export capacity. And now, Europe is swimming in natural gas. But that doesn’t stop big oil: here’s the head of the American Petroleum Institute complaining that any slowdown in the fossil fuel buildout would somehow be a stab in the back. “The signal that sends to our allies is very, very concerning: is the United States going to be a source of LNG and a reliable partner into the future?”
In fact, America’s partners in Europe are now about the business of replacing gas with renewable energy – Germany last year saw its lowest fossil fuel use in many decades. The International Energy Agency forecast this week that Europe will need steadily less gas over the years ahead, not more. As Ana Maria Jaller-Makarewicz, an analyst for the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis said recently: “The decline in gas demand is challenging the narrative that Europe needs more LNG infrastructure to reach its energy security goals. The data is showing that we don’t.”
The move to renewables comes in part because it makes economic and climate sense (we live on a planet where the cheapest way to make power is to point a sheet of glass at the sun) and in part because everyone knows that as long as we remain dependent on fossil fuels, the countries that control those supplies have too much power. That’s obvious with Putin, but why would Europe want to depend on, say, an America ruled by the Republican frontrunner Donald Trump?
All of this makes clear that a new export facility permitted now, which will be built over the next five years and in service for the next 50, won’t have anything to do with Ukraine or Russia or Europe. Instead, the cargoes are bound for Asia – where new analysis shows they will displace sun and wind energy, prolonging the climate crisis. And prolonging the plague of fossil fuel pollution both along the Gulf coast and in the countries where it’s
eventually burned – one death in five on this planet comes from breathing the combustion byproducts of fossil fuel. The combustion associated with solar power, by contrast, happens 93 million miles up in the sky.
Americans don’t want their country fracked to provide cheap gas for China, and Europeans and Ukrainians don’t want to be used as a justification for the climate crimes – and the environmental racism – now under way in the Gulf of Mexico.
The obvious alternative is for countries to work together to spread renewable energy everywhere – in windy Ukraine as it is rebuilt after the war, and in the sun-drenched countries of the global south. Germany – not exactly a tropical nation – now gets more power from the sun and wind than from coal. This isn’t impossible. But it does mean standing up to business as usual. Our diplomats need to realize that security comes, above all, from a stable and working planet, and that we are running out of time to secure that stability; 2023 was the hottest year in the last 125,000, and 2024 is likely to be hotter still.
Those state department officials pushing the Ukraine excuse as a rationale for expanding gas need to talk with their counterparts who were at Dubai, and face the fact that American foreign policy can’t go in two directions at once. Either we’re serious about transitioning off fossil fuels or we’re not, and Joe Biden gets to make the call.
Svitlana Romanko is the founder of Razom We Stand, working to win the war in Ukraine and rebuild the country with green energy
Bill McKibben is the founder of Third Act, which organizes Americans over 60 for action on climate and democracy
Luisa Neubauer is the author of Beginning to End the Climate Crisis: A History of our Future
mited: “surgical” airstrikes on Syrian government forces, if possible as soon as Sunday evening. But UN inspectors were still in Syria, and the timetable slipped, creating time for national security council and cabinet discussions and, fatefully, the recall of parliament.
As the public records will eventually show, there was a proper process. The MoD and the military crawled over the US plans and targets and concluded that, far from shock and awe, the proposition was, if anything, too limited, too surgical, and an insufficiently tough signal to Assad. The FCO analysed the likely international reaction. The lawyers built the case for the action being consistent with international law. At the NSC, solemn-faced cabinet ministers spoke in turn: most supported, two sat on the fence. It was the antithesis of much-criticised “sofa government”. And yet, in the end, what was it worth? In the House of Commons, MPs voted to absolve their consciences over their support for the 2003 Iraq invasion and the day was lost by 13 votes: the first time a British government had lost a vote on military action since 1782.
A few days later, Obama abandoned his plans for US airstrikes, settling for a deal involving Syrian promises to surrender their chemical weapons capability. Obama later asserted that was one of the best decisions he ever took: read David Cameron’s autobiography for a sharply different view. The Assad government eventually won its civil war, at the cost of the comprehensive destruction of the country, while Russia and Iran extended their reach and influence. Some saw this as a strategic tipping point from which the west has never recovered. So, the historical precedents are discouraging. Interventions led to western forces getting bogged down in seemingly endless wars. Standing back surrendered territory and advantage to our enemies. Can the story be different this time? The case for action is strong. Some 15% of global trade passes through the Red Sea. Houthi attacks might claim to single out shipping bound for Israeli ports, but the reality is that they are indiscriminate and target whoever is passing. And sending cargo vessels around the much longer Cape of Good Hope route adds hugely to shipping costs. According to Copenhagenbased shipping analyst Peter Sand, $1m worth of extra fuel per voyage. These extra costs surface at the shopping till and risk renewed inflation just as central banks are getting it under control.
They would compound economic woes on both sides of the Atlantic.
Biden’s ratings are under water in part because of widespread despair about the American economy, while the Conservatives are facing a headwind comprising low to non-existent growth, a cost of living crisis, high energy and mortgage costs and stubborn inflation.
And surely two of the most powerful and advanced air forces in the world can see off some 20,000 Houthi militia? Well, maybe. The Saudis and Emiratis, with their expensive, western-supplied aircraft, spent seven years trying to bomb the Houthis into defeat and failed. US and UK airstrikes will certainly do substantial damage to Houthi capability, destroying radar stations, command and control centres and stocks of drones, missiles and helicopters. But they won’t get it all. The Iranians appear ready to pay for indefinite restocking. Some of the weapons of this particular war, such as drones and small, fast boats, are inexpensive and can be acquired in bulk. Yet, these weapons can do significant damage to large, expensive western vessels: we know from the Falklands how destructive a single missile can be. The 20odd US warships in the eastern Mediterranean and Gulf will be costing billions. And the Americans know most of the shipping going through the Red Sea and Suez Canal is destined for European, not US, ports.
All of which means that this is a high-risk operation, riven with uncertainty. Yet there is something old-fashioned, almost quixotic, about what
Joe Biden and Rishi Sunak are doing. They may not realise it, but they are actually followers of the great 19th-century American naval strategist, Alfred Thayer Mahan, who wrote in his definitive work, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History: “Whoever rules the waves rules the world.” Moreover, they are standing up for the postwar world order. International law should prevail, western values should dominate, anarchy should be challenged, order be restored – and the sea lanes should be kept open. But in this age of the populist and the strongman, the political careers of Biden and Sunak hang by a thread. Both face elections within the next 12 months. Both are well behind in their opinion polls. This could be a turning point for one or the other. Or it could be the last gasp of the old order. I for one hope their intervention succeeds.
• Sir Kim Darroch was UK national security adviser from 2012-2015 and British ambassador to the US from 2016-2019
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Some saw this a strategic tipping point from which the west has never recovered