The burgeoning energy crisis is slowly engulfing almost entire Europe, besides several parts of the globe. The European Union is going to discuss this ongoing energy crisis in a bid to come out with some common solutions. The meeting scheduled today (Friday) in Prague, may discuss a range of issues including Germany’s plan to subsidise gas prices for its consumers and businesses, a move that has invited some reactions from France and Italy.
In the meantime, Spain and Germany held bilateral talks in Spain Wednesday before they discuss the energy crisis with other European countries. The meeting between two centre-left leaders- Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Snchez and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, was also accompanies by 15 ministers from both of the governments.
Derived from Russia and Ukraine conflict, the energy crisis is slowing acquiring greater dimension and has created panic among people thinking the winter may worsen the crisis amid rising demands of energy sources. Majority of the countries are in a search for alternatives to Russian gas and oil. Apart from addressing individual country centric solutions, the meeting is expected to be dominated by the ideas which could find common solutions to the energy crisis.
In Europe, Gas and electricity prices reached record levels in 2021 and again hit all-time highs in 2022 with electricity retail prices having increased by almost 50% year-on-year from July 2021. Similarly, global energy prices increased by more than 26% in the early months of 2022 with Asian Development Bank (ADB) Principal Energy Specialist Kelly Hewitt saying- electricity bills may further rise by 27% by 2025, if energy supply mix of different countries remains unchanged.
The Russia-Ukraine conflict may have negatively impacted large number of countries, but the consequences are far greater in degree for those with a higher dependency on Russian carbon-based fuels. They are also likely to discuss building another larger pipeline with France that could pump natural gas, potentially green hydrogen northwards to the rest of Europe. However, France doesn’t appear to be in agreement with this plan.
The 27 EU members appear to be in a firefighting mode with Polish citizens being forced to burn trash and Romania capping the prices of firewood as demand for alternative heating sources is soaring up. Owing to trash burning, less garbage is being noticed in particularly small towns and there is a significant drop in garbage collection, especially of the materials which could be suitable for burning such as paper, cardboard, packaging and other such things.
It is to be noted that the European Union decided to ban Russian coal after it engaged in a conflict with Ukraine. This ban has hit Poland very hard as it is a very much coal-reliant country. Now when winter is approaching fast majority of the people don’t have sufficient amount of coal to get through the cold season.
Meanwhile, the cost of natural gas has also soared in several European countries as Russia cut off the supplies with Moscow being accused of weaponising energy. Earlier, Romania capped prices for gas and power to help ease the surge in energy prices following Russia’s very aggressive posture against Ukraine. In absence of sufficient gas and power, firewood grew in popularity as a low cost alternative for heat. The demand for firewood grew in several countries of Europe and so is wood theft.
The situation is going to further worsen after OPEC+, the oil producing countries led by Russia and Saudi Arabia, announced to slash its production by 2 million barrels a day, inviting blistering reactions from a number of countries including US, who lobbied the group to continue production at least at the current levels if not greater in amount.
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