Europe’s energy crisis is about far more than just energy. It’s also the impetus for a major geopolitical reconfiguration at a global scale. No one knows exactly what the world’s energy and political landscapes will look like when the dust settles (which, by the way, will be years from now) but it’s guaranteed that it will be markedly different than it was the day before Russia – historically the largest exporter of oil and natural gas to the European Union by a long shot – illegally invaded Ukraine.
This year’s annual energy outlook from the International Energy Agency (IEA) warns that we are currently living through a “global energy crisis of unprecedented depth and complexity,” and that “there is no going back to the way things were” before the unprecedented dual shocks of the novel coronavirus pandemic and Russia’s war in Ukraine. Together, these events have already reconfigured the energy trade worldwide, but the shockwaves to the global economy are just getting started.
Many look at Europe’s current energy deficit as a kind of heroism, as the European Union has taken a huge economic hit in order to impose energy sanctions on the Kremlin – the one kind of sanction that could really cripple the Russian economy in the hopes of ending the war in Ukraine. “In the struggle to help Ukraine and resist Russian aggression, Europe has displayed unity, grit and a principled willingness to bear enormous costs,” the Economist recently reported.
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