| | | | |  | | By Debra Kahn, Catherine Boudreau, Jordan Wolman and Lorraine Woellert | | | | | 
The world has rallied around Ukraine, and the energy implications could get very interesting. | (Alex Brandon/AP Photo) | WARTIME ENERGY — Russia has the West over a literal barrel. While fossil fuel dependency didn't cause the attack on Ukraine — no one but Vladimir Putin himself can explain what triggered him to invade — it could prolong the fighting. But it also could accelerate energy policy shifts already under way in the West. It's true, sustainability tends to be forgotten when the shit hits the fan. Where President Jimmy Carter urged Americans to weather OPEC's oil-market perturbations by putting on a sweater, President Joe Biden — already politically vulnerable to high gas prices — so far has spared Russian oil companies from sanctions. "The ability of the West to inflict pain on Russia in response to its aggression is constrained by the fact we're so dependent on Russia for energy, particularly natural gas into Europe," said Jason Bordoff, a former Obama administration official who is founding director of the Columbia University Center on Global Energy Policy. "I don't think it's that sustainability should or needs to come second, but it's about two things: It's about the near term and the long term," Bordoff said. "You're not going to be off natural gas for heat this winter. We need to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time." Indeed, Biden is planning to highlight the need for more climate-friendly investments in tonight's State of the Union address, alongside addressing high consumer prices. In the near term, sensitivity to energy price hikes might hurt clean energy domestically as utilities come under pressure from regulators to keep rates affordable. Coal might also become more competitive, as E&E News' Miranda Willson reports. In the U.S., there might be little or no meaningful activity when it comes to Russian energy — besides price volatility — but the messaging is in full swing. Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley has called for "energy independence" and blames Democrats for trying to rein in domestic fossil fuel production. (ICYMI, the U.S. remains the No. 1 producer of oil and natural gas.) The Western player that really matters here is Germany. And it's stepping up, despite the threat of a natural gas supply crunch. After halting the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, the Germans are planning to build liquefied natural gas terminals to receive shipments from the U.S. and other countries. It's not an either/or: LNG terminals could be converted to receive renewably generated hydrogen, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Sunday. "Germany has shown itself willing to bear pain in order to punish Russia, and I think Putin underestimated that willingness," said Michael Wara, director of the Climate and Energy Policy Program at Stanford University. "Europe is deciding that they can no longer depend on a major energy supplier and they need to re-architect their energy systems in response to that." Speaking of re-architecting: Keep reading to see what shipping publications are saying about international trade.
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| | | | GAME ON — Welcome to the Long Game, where we're delivering the latest on efforts to shape our future. Tuesday through Friday, we'll have data-driven storytelling, compelling interviews with industry and political leaders, and more news to keep you in the loop on sustainability. Our team is sustainability editor Greg Mott, deputy editor Debra Kahn, reporters Lorraine Woellert and Catherine Boudreau and digital producer Jordan Wolman. Reach them at gmott@politico.com, dkahn@politico.com , lwoellert@politico.com, cboudreau@politico.com and jwolman@politico.com. Thanks to Ben Lefebvre and Miranda Willson. Want more? Sign up for the Long Game. Four days a week and still totally free!
| | | | SUBSCRIBE TO NATIONAL SECURITY DAILY : Keep up with the latest critical developments from Ukraine and across Europe in our daily newsletter, National Security Daily. The Russian invasion of Ukraine could disrupt the established world order and result in a refugee crisis, increased cyberattacks, rising energy costs and additional disruption to global supply chains. Go inside the top national security and foreign-policymaking shops for insight on the global threats faced by the U.S. and its allies and what actions world leaders are taking to address them. Subscribe today. | | | | | | | | UNEQUAL IMPACTS — The disparities between rich and poor nations determine who can withstand the impacts of climate change – from faltering food systems, more severe storms and rising seas – and who can't. Compare the Western U.S. with Madagascar. Both places are plagued by drought, but Americans remain relatively secure while Madagascar is on the verge of famine after two failed rainy seasons. The findings published by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on Monday examined the social, political and economic factors that shape who will suffer most from global warming. Between 2010 and 2020, floods, drought and storms killed 15 times more people in countries categorized as highly vulnerable than in those deemed most secure, researchers found. The most vulnerable people live in Africa, South Asia, Central and South America, small island states and the Arctic. They also have contributed the least to planet-warming emissions. Solutions. There is still a chance to mitigate the worst impacts by reducing emissions from fossil fuels and implementing adaptation strategies, the IPCC report said. But developing countries still don't have enough finance to adopt them. POLITICO's Zack Colman, Karl Mathiesen and Zia Weise have the story.
| | | WALK AWAY MONEY — The global divestment movement is marking its latest milestone today: Investors with more than $40 trillion in assets under management have committed at some level to divest from fossil fuels. Divestment commitments have picked up steam in recent months, with big names like Harvard University, the Ford Foundation and the New York pension fund divesting. More than 1,500 institutions around the world have now at least partially divested. "It's hard to imagine that we've reached this milestone — it's because hundreds of thousands of people around the world have joined in, finding a way to make a real difference in the climate fight on their campus, in their church, or through their pension fund," Bill McKibben of Third Act said in a statement. But the $40 trillion announcement comes amid a tug-of-war at home when it comes to financing energy companies and their projects, resulting in a patchwork of guidance for banks and companies. And the divestment movement still has a long way to go, with public pension funds investing billions in fossil fuels. The financial side of climate change was on the minds of the IPCC report's authors, too. The report states that "current global financial flows for adaptation, including from public and private finance sources, are insufficient for and constrain implementation of adaptation options especially in developing countries." The overwhelming majority of climate finance, according to the report, was targeted for mitigation with only a small portion devoted to adaptation.
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Mriya, the world's largest plane — a massive cargo carrier — might be a casualty of war. | (Sergei Chuzavkov/AP Photo) | SUPPLY CHAINS — Pandemics aside, geopolitical risk is a big threat to supply chains, and Russia's invasion of Ukraine already seems to be putting the skids on the slowly recovering global movement of goods. Air cargo shippers in Asia and Europe are bracing for a price hike after the U.K. and European Union banned Russian aircraft, the Loadstar reports. Oil price volatility will further push up transport costs. FreightWaves has a bunch of charts and the editorial comment that companies have no choice but to consider the implications of their international trade relationships. "Countries with autocratic leadership may have a low-cost labor force but our ideals are not in alignment, which increases the risk for confrontation," the publication writes. There's symbolism here somewhere: The world's biggest aircraft — a cargo-carrying beast built to transport Soviet space shuttles — was hit by shelling and possibly destroyed. The Antonov An-225 Mriya was undergoing repairs outside of Kyiv, Space.com reports. CYBERSECURITY — Toyota Motor Corp. suspended factory operations in Japan after a suspected cyberattack on a plastic parts supplier. The cost so far: About 13,000 cars of output. Japan will investigate the incident and whether Russia was involved, Reuters reports. Don't forget: As cyberattacks mount, some experts worry that they could become uninsurable. | | | — Environmental groups are stepping up the pressure for President Joe Biden to put climate change front and center in his State of the Union speech tonight, The Hill reports. — The Supreme Court takes on EPA's regulatory authority in landmark case, POLITICO's Alex Guillen reports. — Climate scientists say the evidence of human-caused climate change only continues to mount while nations fail to act. And they're fed up. The New York Times has the story.
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