“What is the double crisis? The first issue has to do with the geopolitical situation: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has finally made the EU understand that Russian energy is a form of power and that Russia has used this power before. In the context of the Ukraine war, energy has even become a weapon, putting Europe in a critical situation. The second leg of the double crisis concerns the climate crisis: the EU has long tried to cut CO2 emissions to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change. Unfortunately, Russian natural gas has been a key tool in the toolbox to reach that goal. As a bridge form of energy, natural gas seemed very attractive because of the lower CO2 emissions compared to coal and oil. However, this basically means that when we were trying to deal with the climate crisis, we exacerbated our geopolitical situation.”
In this TEPSA Explainer, Trine Villumsen Berling (Senior Researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies), Izabela Surwillo (Postdoctoral Researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies), and Veronika Slakaityte (Research Assistant at the Danish Institute for International Studies) focus on two things: political changes needed to resolve the double crisis, and the technological ways out. Their work forms part of the Carlsberg Foundation-funded research project “SECURITECH”. You can learn more about SECURITECH here.
TEPSA Explainers are short videos elaborating on key issues in European affairs according to the expertise of the contributor.
