It might not have felt like it looking at your bills, but Europe dodged an even bigger energy crunch last winter as Russia curtailed or stopped supplies of gas, coal and oil. But even that was more down to luck and brute force than judgement. There were consequences elsewhere and many persist. They point to potentially severe outcomes for climate change goals and regional stability, particularly in the Global South.
Europe avoided recurring power cuts thanks to the combination of a milder-than-expected winter, consumers cutting down on consumption, reduced demand from China, accelerated renewables installations and the continent’s financial muscle.
That last factor was most obvious to the public in the shape of mechanisms like the UK’s Energy Price Guarantee. On the world stage, however, the continent’s more impactful use of cold hard cash came most visibly in the form of a dive into the market for liquified natural gas (LNG), a commodity consequently...