Green futures Could Putin's gamble help the west kick its hydrocarbon habit?

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will have a profound impact on the world’s race to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions, climate experts have warned – but it may not all be negative.

- Fiona Harvey

Vladimir Putin’s attempts to wield his dominance over European energy supplies as a weapon to limit interference in his war appear in danger of backfiring. Europe is embarking on a clean energy push that could reduce Russian gas imports by more than twothirds, while the UK will set out an energy security strategy within days that will emphasise renewable power. In the US, as well as pumping more fossil fuels, Joe Biden is renewing efforts to pass his mauled green investment package.

David Blood, the financier who, with former vice-president Al Gore, founded Generation Investment Management, believes the Ukraine war should boost green energy. “The irony is, this war is funded by the west’s dependence on Russian hydrocarbons. There is now significant evidence to show that hydrocarbons are not just environmentally unsustainable, but that they weaken the social, political and economic fabric of our world too,” he said. “This war provides even more evidence of why there is no time to waste in transitioning away from fossil fuels.”

This fresh impetus to decarbonisation probably caught Putin by surprise, as he had been “happy to use climate to exacerbate tensions within the west”, said Rachel Kyte, the dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts University in the US, and a former high-ranking World Bank climate expert.