Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has focused the EU’s attention on securing its energy supply. Marco Siddi assesses how this renewed focus on geopolitics has impacted on the EU’s commitment to fight climate change.

Two closely interlinked topics have become central to European politics in recent years: a low carbon transition to tackle climate change and the phasing out of EU energy imports from Russia. The debate on the low carbon transition gained prominence in the late 2010s, following the mobilisation of civil society and youth groups such as Fridays for Future and Extinction Rebellion. Together with public opinion surveys that consistently highlighted climate change as a top concern for Europeans, these grassroots movements led EU leaders to scale up their climate and energy policy by launching a European Green Deal in 2019.

In 2022, as Russia – then the EU’s largest provider of fossil fuels – invaded Ukraine, climate goals became entangled with the geopolitical priority of cutting energy dependence on Moscow. The European Commission swiftly presented the REPowerEU Plan, aiming to drastically reduce oil and gas imports from Russia, increase imports from other countries and accelerate the deployment of renewable energy and energy efficiency measures.

In a new book, I analyse these developments, how they relate to previous EU energy and climate policy and their impact on the EU’s path to climate neutrality by 2050. I argue that a clear securitising shift in European energy policy occurred as early as 2014-15, after Russia’s annexation of Crimea, with the launch of the Energy Union Strategy. However, this did not translate into sustained EU-wide efforts to reduce gas and oil imports from Moscow.

Moreover, the discursive securitisation of energy policy and the focus on fossil fuel diversification distracted policy makers from the imperative of accelerating the low carbon transition. While EU countries implemented their (modest) 2020 climate targets and the European Commission prepared new legislative proposals with incremental ambition, it was only with the launch of the European Green Deal that the low carbon transition acquired a central role in both discursive and policy terms.

Geopolitics and the “greenlash”

Since then, however, challenges have multiplied. The COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing economic crisis threatened to derail and deprioritise the green agenda. The EU attempted to prevent this by allocating 30% of its Multiannual Financial Framework for 2021-2027 and of the post-pandemic recovery fund to climate expenditure – even if EU definitions of what counts as “green activities” can be very broad, as shown by the inclusion of gas and nuclear energy projects in the EU taxonomy for sustainable activities.

Growing geopolitical tensions pose an even bigger conundrum for the green agenda. While the crisis with Russia and tensions with China have stimulated the EU to ramp up domestic production and deployment of renewable technologies, they have also induced the Union to seek alternative fossil fuel providers and invest in related infrastructure, such as new liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals.

Worsening relations with Beijing could lead to disruptions in the supply of critical minerals and rare earths and to rising costs for renewable technologies – fields where China is a leader. Furthermore, geopolitical competition undermines the multilateral cooperation that is necessary to advance climate action and low carbon transitions globally. The risk is that decarbonisation only progresses at a slower pace in clubs of richer, allied states, while competitors and poorer countries are excluded from the required technologies.

The challenging international context is compounded by a domestic “greenlash”, namely a backlash against climate policy within the EU. Recent analyses have shown that this is already happening at the city level, where centre-right administrations are reversing urgently needed climate and sustainable mobility policies. As right-wing parties are expected to increase their support in the 2024 European Parliament elections, the “greenlash” could have an impact on EU-level policies as well.

The securitisation of energy

In my book, I take stock of key developments in EU energy and climate policy over the last decade up until 2023. I attempt to provide an understanding of current and upcoming EU policy by reflecting on four central themes: conceptual and theoretical approaches to investigating European energy policy; the complex relationship between European energy security and the climate agenda; the rise and fall of EU–Russia energy relations; and Europe’s role in the global energy transition.

I argue that a multi-theoretical approach is more apt for understanding the evolving nature of European energy policy. While the EU used to be described as a liberal actor relying on norms, trade and interdependence, a more realist discourse on EU energy security has now taken hold.

Its focus on military and political control of strategic energy resources, as well as risks inherent in interdependences, has paved the way for a growing securitisation of energy flows and infrastructure. At the same time, critical approaches such as dependency theory highlight the risk that historical patterns of inequality are replicated in low carbon transitions, with the Global North controlling finance and advanced technology and poorer countries relegated to the role of providers of raw materials and cheap labour.

While being ambitious and striving for climate neutrality by 2050, EU energy policy reflects both the securitising trend and an inclination to consider the Global South as a reluctant latecomer in low carbon transitions, whose primary role is to cater for the decarbonisation targets of the Global North. In the EU, the securitisation of energy flows has enabled “old” policies focusing on the security of fossil fuel supplies to coexist with ambitious climate targets and a comprehensive Green Deal.

While the speed and success of the low carbon transition in Europe remains uncertain, a fundamental shift appears irreversible: after half a century of growing energy trade and interdependence, Russia has lost its position as main oil and gas provider to the EU. The “energy bridge” between Moscow and the EU, to use Thane Gustafson’s metaphor, is being dismantled. However, geographical proximity implies that Russia and the EU will continue to share ecological and environmental challenges with a cross-border dimension. Worsening climate change suggests that these challenges will only become more significant over time.

Still a climate leader?

This leads to a final, essential argument. The EU has announced its intention to become a leader in the energy transition and drive the global climate agenda. However, the EU’s self-perception as a role model in climate and energy policy is not shared by many international actors. Its carbon border adjustment mechanism, together with its reluctance to provide adequate levels of climate finance and green technologies, reinforce perceptions of the Union as a self-interested, protectionist bloc. New geopolitical dividing lines only strengthen these critical views.

To be broadly recognised as a climate action leader, the EU therefore needs to defy the return of geopolitics, promote multilateral cooperation and persuade allies and competitors alike that unchecked global warming will be disastrous for everyone in the very near future.

For more information, see the author’s new book, European Energy Politics: The Green Transition and EU–Russia Energy Relations (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2023)

Note: This article gives the views of the author, not the position of EUROPP – European Politics and Policy or the London School of Economics. Featured image credit: European Union