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Mother Jones illustration; Rod Lamkey/ZUMA; Wolfgang Schwan/Anadolu Agency/Getty; Angus Mordant/Bloomberg/Getty
On Monday, the United Nations’ climate change assessment body, the IPCC, released a landmark Report finding that 150 years of unchecked fossil fuel burning had left the planet with a “brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all.”
A day before, speaking at a virtual meeting of UN climate delegates from her home in embattled Kyiv, Ukraine’s representative, Svitlana Krakovska, Related the report’s finding to Russia’s attack on her homeland: “Human-induced climate change and the war on Ukraine have the same roots: fossil fuels, and our dependence on them.” She added: “We will not surrender in Ukraine…And we hope the world will not surrender in building a climate-resilient future.”
The United States’ politicians and lobbyists for the fossil fuel industry are learning a different lesson from the conflict. Russia is a petrostate that heavily depends on oil and natural gas exports to Europe. Much of this energy flows through Ukraine. Russia currently supplies about a third to Europe’s natural gas needs, mainly for heating homes in winter. With Russia emerging as a global pariah for its ruthless assault, the world should reject that country’s oil and instead encourage US producers to drill, baby, drill!
The American Petroleum Institute, the industry’s main trade group, started making its appeal on February 23, a day before Russia launched its siege:
U.S. energy leadership is vital as Ukraine faces crisis. Here are four things to consider. @WhiteHouseYou can take immediate action to ensure energy security at both home and abroad. pic.twitter.com/oGEucyhCiE
— American Petroleum Institute (@APIenergy) February 24, 2022
The institute called for measures that were long at the top of its priority list. Policy Wish Liste: That the Biden administration reverses permit restrictions fossil fuel productionFederal land; Offshore drilling is reopened; “Accelerate energy infrastructure permitting”; and “reduce legal and regulatory uncertainty” (translation: deregulate us, please). The infrastructure bit is likely a reference to projects like the stalled Keystone XL pipeline, designed to move oil from Canada’s tar sands to the Gulf of Mexico for processing and export, and PortsThat can send liquified natural gas fracked in the United States overseas. API reiterated these demands a day later in a letter to Jennifer Granholm, Secretary of the US Department of Energy.
API’s @mj_sommers sent a letter to @SecGranholm @ENERGYOutlining a list if concrete policy solutions the administration could immediately implement in order to ensure American energy security and leadership. Below is the complete letter: pic.twitter.com/q6z8ElKXzM
— American Petroleum Institute (@APIenergy) March 1, 2022
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V), a friend of the fossil fuel industry, has echoed these sentiments.
Joe Manchin urges the US to boost oil production in the wake of Russia-Ukraine War https://t.co/B0AWJGDeSR pic.twitter.com/WBWnkHdgiQ
— New York Post (@nypost) March 1, 2022
A March 2 Let me knowTo President Biden, the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources endorsed the view of every Republican member. The senators rebuked the administration for nixing the Keystone pipeline and accused its energy policies of leaving the United States and its allies “vulnerable to the malicious maneuverings of Vladimir Putin.” Having vented their spleen, they went on to deliver a familiar set of demands: more pipeline and offshore-drilling permits; more leases on public land; less regulation. “Mr. President, America is the world’s energy superpower,” they concluded. “It is time we started acting like it again.”
A March 1 blog post, US Chamber of Commerce exec Martin Dubin rolled out a similar vision for responding to Russian aggression, though he added an important caveat: “The actions we recommend will not change Europe’s desperate energy security circumstances overnight.” That’s an understatement, because finding and tapping new wells and building shipping terminals that can export natural gas can take years. Even so, Dubin insisted, deregulation to spur more drilling is “critical to addressing energy security vulnerabilities over the coming decade, and will send a much-needed signal to markets and potential investors that the United States is serious about supplying itself and its allies with the energy resources necessary to weaken Russia’s influence.”
But here’s the thing: The exact same argument about timing could be made for a different response to Russia’s aggression, one much more in line with Krakovska’s appeal at the UN climate panel meeting. Even though building new oil infrastructure takes years, why not use the crisis as an opportunity to create green energy in the United States or Europe?
Take Germany. As Noah J. Gordon is an associate fellow who specializes in European energy markets. He was mentioned in an InterviewWith Slate’s Nitish Pahwa, the great bulk of Russian gas flowing into Germany goes into home heating. Germany could instead of replacing it by fracked US gas, it could develop green energy sources like wind or solar to power its grid, and increase production and installation of electric vehicles. Heat pumpsThey heat homes as efficiently and cost less than gas-powered furnaces.
Gordon called for a “wartime mobilization” to build heat pumps and weatherize buildings to make them more energy efficient. It’s true that Germany’s Strom gridIt still uses some dirty sources, including some Russian gaz. And that the nation’s recent move away from nuclear power has nudged up the grid’s reliance on natural gas. But “at least with heat pumps and efficiency, you’re not locking in future fossil fuel use,” Gordon told Slate. Indeed, the contribution of wind and solar power to Germany’s energy grid has More than twice the amountSince 2011. Heat pumps are becoming more and more efficient as these renewable power sources continue to grow. Gas-powered furnaces, on the other hand, are always reliant on gas.
The United States could use the Ukraine crises to accelerate greening our electric grid and encourage heat pump adoption. These days, Sen. Manchin is terribly concerned that Russia’s access to global energy markets is financing its brutal imperial machinations. But he was just last November. killedA program that could have greatly benefited from the Internet. WeanedThe US power grid is now independent of its dependence on natural gases and coal.
Big Oil’s overt use of the crisis as a lever to goad the public and the US government to embrace more drilling in an era of fast-moving climate chaos made me think of Naomi Klein’s landmark 2007 book, The Shock Doctrine. The book showed how powerful industries tend to uses the public’s disorientation following big collective shocks—wars, terrorist attacks, natural disasters—to push policies that reinforce an unjust status quo. The aptness of that frame for the current moment isn’t lost on Klein herself.
I’m shocked (doctrined). https://t.co/QRipsZ2VmI
— Naomi Klein (@NaomiAKlein) March 2, 2022
As Russia wages a brutal war at Europe’s edge, the prospect for the kind of global action on climate change called for by the IPPC could fade, with priorities shifting from investment in a clean energy future to a stocking up of weapons. Germany has not yet announced any mobilization to produce and install heat pumps since the invasion. VowTo increase military spending and to build new facilities for non-Russian gas imports.
If the US oil industry gets its way, Vladimir Putin’s mad gambit could serve to further entrench fossil fuels. And as Svitlana Krakovska’s statement at the IPCC meeting suggests, maybe that’s part of his intention. I’m haunted by a line from The Shock Doctrine: “Extreme violence has a way of preventing us from seeing the interests it serves.”
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