Will the war in Ukraine accelerate or derail the green energy transition?
The world was just about to recover from the pandemic. Then, on February 24, Russian forces started its military operations in Ukraine. At the time of writing more than 3.8 million have fled the country and 6.5 million are internally displaced. A maternity ward and a theater building with hundreds of people seeking shelter in the basement were recently hit by bombs. The humanitarian situation is catastrophic. Destruction across Ukraine is massive. No matter how this ends, healing the wounds will take years, decades.
The knock-on effects from the Ukraine war
Only a few days after the military operations began, analysts started to talk about the knock-on effects. Russia and Ukraine are major commodities producers. Disruptions make global prices soar, especially for oil and natural gas. Food costs have jumped. Wheat, for which Ukraine and Russia make up 30 percent of global exports, is reaching a record. Soaring food and fuel prices will exacerbate food insecurity. It will erode the value of income due to inflation and spur greater risk for unrest.
Then there are the knock-on effects on other commodities such as minerals and metal. And here is my point.
What is the price the oceans will pay for the Ukraine war?
Just four days after the invasion, the IPCC presented its sixth assessment report. And three weeks later, the convention on biological diversity conference started in Geneva.
Watching the horrible suffering from the battle fields, makes it difficult to worry about anything else. But, that’s exactly what is needed. The natural world needs every human being on this planet to address the massive crises we face.
The least the oceans need now is the war in Ukraine.
Technology development accelerate during war
A couple of weeks ago I watched the Imitation Game on Netflix. British intelligence service tasked mathematician Alan Turing to decode the Enigma, a cipher device used to encipher top-secret messages by Nazi-Germany. The movie portrays a mathematician under immense pressure. If he succeeded it would give the UK and it’s allies a big advantage. He did succeed. And it saved millions of lives.
Are we gonna see a Turing moment now? Will abandoning Russian gas spur green tech in the EU and elsewhere?
Germany may close down it’s three remaining nuclear reactors by the end of this year. Unthinkable before the war. European leaders have proposed fast-track developments of solar energy and tripling clean energy capacity by 2030.
On the downside, China is ramping up its coal production, and the world was not on the right track to cut emissions before the war either. 80 per cent of the world’s energy is still on fossile fuel.
A good crisis. Again.
“Never let a good crisis go to waste “, was a popular quote (credited Churchill) among leaders during the pandemic. Of the $14 trillion economic stimulis measures in 2020-2021, only 6 per cent were allocated to areas that cut emissions. Did we let the pandemic go to waste?
Also read: Corona and climate change
It’s different now. Europe profoundly believes dependency on Russian gas is history. Fossile fuel dependency is about security, not “only” the natural world. The sense of urgency is much stronger. The Russian leadership does not rule out use of nuclear weapons. It’s a wake up call, to put it mildly.
But, does the technology and the resources needed for it take into account what the ocean can sustainably offer?
My concern is that the urgent need to greenify the world, will ignore warnings about the damage it can cause life in the oceans.
An ocean of commodities
Electrification of the world requires more minerals for batteries. Electric vehicle sales accelerate. Minerals on land are scarce but also geographically concentrated. A few countries dominate the industry, with China as the most dominant.
Battery demand for electric vehicles will grow 40 times the next 20 years, and the overall demand for minerals, 30 times, according to the International Energy Agency. Cobalt demand will increase by 70 times and manganese 58 times by 2040. The demand will unavoidably lead to more traditional mining.
Fast-tracking damage?
Fast tracking deep sea mining to cut dependency on Russian fossile fuel means less time to develop sustainable methods. Skepticism towards deep sea mining is growing. BMW, Volvo Group, Samsung and Google have teamed up to abstain from sourcing deep sea minerals. The EU parliament banned seabed mining in 2018 until we know more about the environmental risks.
Gale force offshore wind investments
The International Energy Agency state that close-to-shore offshore wind sites globally could provide almost 36,000 TWh of electricity per year. This is close to the global electricity demand projected for 2040, but the potential is much higher if you include the oceans as a whole: 420,000 TWh.
Offshore wind turbines make low-frequency sound. This disturbs whales and other large marine mammals. It can also lead to collisions with boats and stranding with consequent death. Electric cables that run along the seabed can disturb animals such as eels, stingrays and sharks, as they can perceive electromagnetic fields. It affects the species’ ability to orientate themselves. Fish that spawn can be disturbed by the offshore wind turbines that are often planned in central spawning grounds.
Cooperation
How China, Russia, the US and EU deal with politics impacts on our ability to tackle the climate crisis. An unstable global order, without confidence between world leaders makes international cooperation complicated and international agreements challenging.
I wonder how the big emitters will come together and agree on reducing greenhouse gas emission after this.
Also read: Russia has a 2300 billion dollar Arctic plan
Cover photo: A kindergarden in Avdiivka, Donetsk Eastern Ukraine, 2018. It is located only 2 kilometers from what was the contact line between the government controlled areas and non-government controlled areas. Kids here heard shelling several times a week. Photo taken during a work travel.
