The magazine The Economist writes in a broad-based article that the war in Ukraine has accelerated the green shift – how the world should stop emitting the greenhouse gas CO₂. – I think that is absolutely correct, says chief analyst at Nordea, Thina Saltvedt, about The Economist’s estimate. Research leader in Cicero, Merethe Dotterud Leiren, also believes that the war has helped speed up the green gift. – There is no doubt that the war and its consequences have also globally increased the pace of the green shift, says Thina Saltvedt. Photo: Nordea She explained that climate policy is closely linked to energy policy – In the EU, the import of gas from Russia was around 40 per cent and has fallen to 9 per cent. It is a very drastic cut, says Leiren. According to the Economist, the war has affected the transition in three ways: More ambitious goals Politically, the EU has met the loss of Russian gas with a clear plan. And that plan is about the green shift. – The EU responds to any crisis at the moment, whether it’s a pandemic or an energy crisis, with the green light. A very clear example of that is the REPowerEU plan, which came as a direct response to the war, says Leiren. The plan she is talking about is REPowerEU. It both strengthens the EU’s climate policy and increases the pace of the transition, among other things by relaxing licensing processes. Among the goals in the new plan is that the EU will now double the production of solar power by 2025. Previously, this goal was 2030. Have to pay more The war has led to gas prices rising sharply. Although the prices are lower than the peak level from June 2022, they are still far higher than the prices we have become accustomed to in the last decade. High prices make it more profitable to invest in renewable energy, writes Rystad Energy. At pre-war power prices, it took an average of eleven years to pay off the cost of building a solar power plant in Germany. Today’s prices mean that the same solar power plant will now be able to be paid off within three years. It has become more expensive to make renewable energy In recent months, there has been an increase in the price of renewable energy, but Saltvedt believes that it will not last. – The price increase we are now seeing due to great demand to replace Russian gas and oil is expected to lead to increased production and thus lower prices again in the long term, she says. – The costs of producing wind power on land, battery technology and solar power have fallen very much in the last ten years, Thina Saltvedt continues. An example is the price of energy from solar cells. According to JPMorgan, it has decreased by 89 per cent since 2009. The war has led to several countries in Europe burning up old coal-fired power plants. Photo: Wolfgang Rattay / Reuters Has used more coal The world used more coal in 2022 than ever before, writes the International Energy Agency IEA. For the first time, the world used over 8 billion tonnes of coal. 2022 thus surpassed 2013, the previous record year. Part of the increase is due to the EU using more coal as it buys less gas from Russia. – You cannot make the transition overnight. These are quite large numbers, says Dotterud Leiren. Saltvedt believes that the increased use of coal will not last. There has not been investment in many new coal-fired power plants in the EU. Instead, they have put into operation some of the ones they had before, in order to ensure that they have access to enough energy. – They are only meant to be as security for the next one to three years, says Thina Saltvedt.
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Believes the Ukraine war has accelerated the green shift – news – Klima
