Europe is facing a severe energy crisis. Its efforts to walk the fine line between resisting Russian invasion of Ukraine and funding the war in the East to maintain living standards in the West are failing. European Commission President Ursula von der Lane warned last week that a further reduction in Russian energy exports could lead to a very cold winter on the continent, limit public tolerance towards support for Ukraine, and even shock governments. The situation in the present is bleak, and the future looks no less bleak.
Of course, Europe’s energy troubles are self-produced. The countries of the continent devoted most of their efforts to the development of a green economy, but progress towards this goal turned out to be an illusion. It was Russian fuels that propelled this project, which gave the Kremlin a practical veto over it. And yet, the main trouble into which Europe put itself was the paradigm. It simply decided to define parts of its energy complex as environmentally defective, even when such definitions could be easily disputed.
So what did she do in response to problems she created herself? She simply redefined those seemingly dangerous energies and has now turned them “green.” At last week’s European Parliament meeting it was decided that natural gas and nuclear energy are now “green” energy sources so that they meet EU environmental standards, allowing their producers to enjoy government subsidies and loans on favorable terms.
Climate activists were outraged by the decision they defined as “Greenwashing” – an attempt to create a seemingly positive image of energies that they claim are harming the environment – and they are not entirely wrong. The EU is indeed hypocritical, the same kind of hypocrisy that was once used to appease those activists. Now, the main concern of MEPs is to appease everyone else.
The European juggling of redefinition may be a sign of coming beyond the continent’s borders, the New York Times predicts. Environmentalists are now worried that the European decision may persuade other countries to slow down the transition from relying on reliable energy sources, to relying on “renewable” and problematic sources like wind and solar energy. If it turns out that their fear is indeed justified, it’s not only because nuclear energy and fuels like natural gas are available and reliable sources, but also because their very pre-definition as “unfriendly” did not make sense at all.
Natural gas has been defined for years as a “bridge fuel” because it has the potential to reduce dependence or completely replace conventional fuels that produce much higher pollutant emissions. The greenhouse gases emitted in the process of producing and propelling energy have been at the center of a global reduction effort along with the use of new technologies. The environmental consequences of this revolution are measurable. According to the International Energy Agency, since 2010, the transition from coal to gas has saved about 500 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions. According to the agency, this is an effect similar to “200 million new electric vehicles that would have replaced carbon-emitting vehicles during this period.”
If so, the fact that natural gas can serve as a bridge to a greener and cleaner future is very frustrating for environmental activists. This hostility could be attributed to the zeal of activists for the purpose of conserving the environment, had they not been so eager to become allocated out of disgust the energy produced from turbines powered by steam generated by a nuclear fission reaction. The failure of environmental activists to present empirical and equitable arguments for the difference between these two energy sources is that the EU can bind them together – first as seemingly polluting energies, and now as green energies.
The New York Times explains that the latest development has been brewed and realized with the help of the position taken by European countries against Russian aggression. This is a partially true claim, but similar proposals for redefining the types of energy sources began to emerge long before the first Russian soldier crossed the border into Ukraine.
As early as the beginning of January, for example, the same newspaper reported on an effort to define natural gas and nuclear energy as “transitional” green energy sources, in order to encourage further investment in the field. The plan was delayed due to opposition from anti-nuclear states, led by Germany, and from environmental activists. As a Dutch Member of Parliament was quoted as saying at the time, if such a plan had been implemented, “all senior EU climate and environment officials would have been flushed down the toilet.”
Well – goodbye to you, European climate leaders. The discovery that we can simply define energy sources as “green” for convenience reveals the political, not scientific, nature of the entire renewable energy project, even before we start talking about its inefficiency and practicality. The dilapidated structure that allowed an entire continent to pretend not to be completely dependent on oil or gas collapsed at the first encounter with geopolitical reality. If only Europe had the option to define the Russian threat as “non-existent”… Unfortunately, reality does not work that way.
The column was first published on the ‘Commentary’ website