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This story was originally published by The Guardian and appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
Flights should be banned in continental Europe and car use banned in city centres to save energy and prevent Vladimir Putin profiting from fossil fuel sales, campaigners have said.
It would be possible for Europe to quickly end its reliance on oil and gas from Russia by taking strong measures, according to a report by the climate adviser Mark Lynas, energy analyst Rauli Partanen, and energy and sustainability installations specialist Joris van Dorp.
Policies include rationing, with everyone in Europe allowed the same minimum amount of energy to use and limiting thermostats to 18 C in winter.
“The biggest problem is gas. In total last year, Europe imported 155 billion cubic metres of gas from Russia,” the authors said. Critics of the EU’s oil and gas policy have pointed out that hydrocarbon sales are financing the war in Ukraine.
Even the EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said recently: “We’ve given Ukraine nearly €1 billion. That might seem like a lot, but €1 billion is what we’re paying Putin every day for the energy he provides us with. Since the start of the war, we’ve given him €35 billion, compared to the €1 billion we’ve given Ukraine to arm itself.”
The report’s authors said: “We conclude it is possible to eliminate Russian gas imports starting immediately in Europe. This will require an unprecedented level of European solidarity, a combination of a Marshall Plan and a Berlin airlift to redistribute energy around the continent as needed and support the transition.”
The International Energy Agency recently released a 10-point plan to reduce demand for oil use in member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, with suggestions including subsidized public transport, lower speed limits and a reduction in business flights. The authors of the latest report from the RePlanet Research Institute, however, say such measures would reduce demand by 2.7 million barrels a day in advanced economies, still substantially less than Russian oil exports to Europe.
The authors argue that we need to go further, and say they have worked out how to eliminate 25 per cent of all oil use in Europe.
“We propose bans on all business flights, private jets and internal flights within Europe to save oil, and bans also on car use within cities,” they said. “This should be combined with free public transport. While the impacts of this are not easily quantified, we believe this could double the reduction in oil use beyond that proposed by the IEA.”
To replace the gas Europe buys from Russia, the authors recommend measures including stopping the nuclear phaseout in Germany, Sweden and Belgium, reducing heating in buildings by 4 C, and a fast-track deployment of additional solar and wind generation.
These policies could be popular in Europe. New polling conducted by Savanta ComRes found that 41 per cent of people polled in the U.K., Germany Poland, France, Sweden and the Netherlands said they “strongly agreed” that their country should immediately stop buying Russian oil and gas. Only 6.4 per cent strongly disagreed.
Just over 40 per cent said they would be prepared to accept energy rationing to manage demand, and 52.7 per cent that they would eat less meat to reduce demand on Ukrainian exports.
“Europe is sending over €500 million every day directly to the Kremlin because we continue to import vast quantities of Russian oil, gas and coal. This situation cannot continue,” the authors of the report said.
“It is morally and politically untenable for Europe to fund Putin’s war machine — paying for the same missiles and bombs that are raining down on Ukrainian schools and hospitals — at the same time as supposedly uniting to stop Putin through sanctions. There is only one solution. We must cut off this torrent of money we are sending to the Kremlin by immediately stopping our imports of Russian fossil fuels.”
Comments
And we in North America need to show solidarity by doing the same! Hey, that sounds like first big steps in moving away from fossil fuels in order to mitigate against climate catastrophe!!
Europe has a good system of trains ... Canada not so much.
European trains, last I heard, were cheaper than flying, and some of them are darned near as fast.
I doubt that people advocating 18C in winter have themselves *lived* at 18C in winter. Ration coupons, as here and in most of the world during WW2, would be a good idea.
I've flown between Toronto and the west coast of Canada 7 times since 1972, three weddings and two funerals of immediate family members, once to introduce my baby to my family (saved a dozen people flying here), and once for an in-law's wedding, one cross-country bus (with a 4 yo) for a family funeral, and once by train (partner and I introducing each other to our respective families.
I've been vegetarian since the late 60s or early 70s, and vegan for over 2 decades.
I heat the upstairs and basement only minimally during the heating season, and now (thank God!) have a single room AC unit, to cool off enough to sleep.
And I will keep the rooms I "live in" during winter between 20 and 22, depending. Because colder makes my joints hurt. I'm old now, and others I talk to my age seem also to have reduced tolerance to both hot and cold ... while the temperatures we suffer through now are colder in winter, and hotter in summer than they used to be.
It's all well and good for people who are young, hale and hearty to push walking and cycling. I cycled to and from work, and everywhere else, for 20 years. I can't now. Physically can't.
And 18C is too cold for infants. It just is.
But then, no one really cares about the old, or the very young. If they did, "we" would have done Covid a lot differently.
And while everyone's pushing "building up" ... I wonder if we learned anything at all about Covid. Most of the really hard-hit areas here were in tall apartment and condo buildings.
And then, there's Canada. Still building out petro and gas production. I have no printable words to describe what I think of those who made such decisions.
The two of us seniors have taken two overseas return flights in our lifetimes, the purpose being to visit our ancestral homes for the first time. When in Europe we have walked, taken the Tube / Metro and rode the Eurostar between London and Paris, the latter transit modes being electrically powered. I can testify firsthand to the high efficiency, comfort and well-connected inner city locale of high speed intercity rail and beautifully preserved heritage stations. There is no comparison to cramped, crowded and security check-delayed short haul flights that dump you out at the periphery of cities.
Why there is no Eurostar-like 300 km/h rail service between our largest cities is not a matter "we can't afford it" or "there's not enough people," but of "we are too ignorant to do the research" to discover that the Toronto-Montreal corridor met a critical mass in population decades ago with great potential when extended to Windsor and Quebec City, and eventually to US cities like Detroit, Buffalo and Boston-Washington via Albany.
A genuine national climate action plan would produce steady, generous and predictable annual grants to cities to build a lot more transit. A points system could be proposed where cities that end exclusionary zoning that protects sprawl, to foster more diversity in zoning that allows intelligent growth in compact areas and to protect green belts (especially farming that enhances food security), to decrease car dependency, and that donates city-owned land for affordable and subsidized housing would earn more federal funding on a well-publicized scale. Likewise, federal grants for energy efficient buildings (Passive House standards for new builds, more insulation and triple glazing for retrofits) could be upscaled even to the level of rapidly decarbonizing the energy used in structures on a national scale.
These measures will certainly help to decrease the demand for fossil fuels in our domestic economy and will likely not add up to the subsidies given to Big Oil over the last 20 years.
I should add that all EU cities with HSR stations also have a spider's web of other regional intercity rail and Metro connections to these stations, the vast majority being electrified. It's a simple matter of taking escalators to different levels in the same building to change trains.
With regional intercity rail, the urban design impetus would be to enhance existing or build new compact towns joined by rail, like pearls on a necklace. That is, whole towns and complete villages with most necessities of life within walking distance, not mono-zoned subdivisions that require families to be multiple car owners and where a loaf of bread is two km away by SUV.