The war in Ukraine is sparking the first global energy crisis of its kind, and countries around the world should respond by cutting their use of oil and gas, the leader of a major international organization warned Friday.
The International Energy Agency, which was established in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis to ensure a stable global energy market, said the fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is likely to intensify in the coming months as the summer driving season kicks off with supplies. at historic lows.
“Reducing demand is one way to handle the situation without just pumping more oil,” said Fatih Birol, the agency’s executive director.
It’s a message that has been largely absent from the conversation in the United States, the world’s largest oil producer, where fossil fuel companies are making healthy profits and the response to increased gasoline prices is calling for more production.
dr. Birol said the energy crisis is likely to worsen and that it differed from the oil shortage of 1973 because it affects not only oil but also natural gas – affecting transportation and electricity – and because countries are now more interconnected, with the result that a disruption in one supply can have a greater impact on global markets.
On Friday, the agency recommended 10 immediate steps countries can take to conserve oil, such as lowering speed limits, allowing people to work from home up to three days a week and urging travelers to take the train instead of the plane whenever possible. The recommended measures also include car-free Sundays in cities, carpooling and fare reductions on public transport.
If advanced economies put all 10 recommendations into practice, they could cut oil demand by 2.7 million barrels per day, the agency found. That equates to the estimated 2.5 million barrels of Russian oil per day expected to be lost to global markets in the coming months as buyers shun it. The agency also pushed for a series of longer-term structural changes, including electric heat pumps and the prioritization of electric vehicles.
In the European Union, which in recent years has sourced about 40 percent of its natural gas and more than a quarter of its crude oil from Russia, leaders have encouraged citizens to conserve energy. “Everyone can do something,” Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Union’s executive, said at a news conference last week. “Reducing the energy consumption that we have in general, the individual contribution of 450 million Europeans, is a big part.”
In the United States, one of the few calls for conservation has come from Mitch Roth, the mayor of the county of Hawaii, who is particularly vulnerable to skyrocketing energy prices following President Biden’s ban on Russian oil, gas and coal. The state of Hawaii is heavily dependent on Russian fuel, and the high cost of living has already left many families struggling to pay their bills. So Mr. Roth turned to what he saw as a common sense solution: asking his community to use less oil and gas.
“We don’t commit anything,” said Mr. Roth, who has jurisdiction over the island of Hawaii, known as the Big Island. “But for the betterment of your checkbook, for the betterment of our community, for the betterment of our country and for the betterment of our world, it makes a lot of sense.”
Mr. Biden has urged oil companies to ramp up production to keep up with demand, and his energy secretary, Jennifer Granholm, personally delivered the message to fossil fuel executives gathered in Houston last week. .
In the long term, according to government officials, the United States must move away from fossil fuels and develop more solar, wind and other clean energy sources.
“We know we cannot break our dependence on a global resource that is partially controlled by foreign nations and their leaders, so the government is determined to accelerate – not delay – our transition to a clean energy future.” he said. Charisma Troiano, a spokeswoman for Mrs Granholm.
Clean energy is the ultimate solution to tackle global warming and reduce other countries’ energy dependence, many experts say. But it can’t come online soon enough to meet the immediate demand. To make matters worse, countries were already way behind in the emission reductions needed to comply with the Paris Agreement, a global commitment designed to prevent the worst effects of climate change.
As Western countries try to cope with the humanitarian crisis and the energy problems caused by the war in Ukraine, “we must not forget a third crisis, namely the climate crisis,” said Dr. Birol of the International Energy Agency. “And as a result, all 10 measures we are putting on the table not only address the tightness in the crude oil market, but also help pave the way for achieving our climate goals.”
A White House spokesman declined to comment on whether Biden planned to call on Americans to conserve energy, something it sees as political risk.
A handful of Democrats in Congress have talked about conservation. “We need to talk about lowering demand,” Florida Democrat Representative Kathy Castor said. “If we lower the demand, it really undermines the power of these petrodespots to control our lives.”
Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, which represents oil and gas companies, linked energy conservation with hardship.
“I mean, we never want people to waste energy,” she said in an interview. “But you want to tell the American people that they can’t drive to school and work or heat their homes? I mean, everything on your table is the result of oil and natural gas.”
Mr. Biden would face some backlash if he urged Americans to conserve energy — especially as the country emerges from the coronavirus pandemic, said Lee M. Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion.
“People are turning away from the whole idea of masks, so the message of personal sacrifice — having to change their behavior somehow — gets into a freedom debate that the White House doesn’t want to get near now,” said Dr. said Miringoff.
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With the midterm elections approaching and Republicans already using high gas prices to attack Mr Biden’s policies, said Dr. Miringoff that asking Americans to conserve energy was not a winning strategy.
The November elections have a high stakes for Mr. Biden. Republicans have shown little interest in tackling global warming. If they gain control of one or both houses of Congress, the chances of enacting policies to reduce the greenhouse gases that are dangerously warming the planet would diminish significantly.
For many Democrats, the 1980 presidential election is seen as a warning. President Jimmy Carter, who wore the famous jersey and asked Americans to follow suit and turn down their thermostats in response to the energy shortages of the 1970s, was thrashed in his race for a second term. The Senate also moved to Republican control.
“That shocked the political system from which we haven’t fully recovered,” said Jay Hakes, who headed the US Energy Information Administration under President Bill Clinton and headed the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library. “Of course Biden was there at the time.”
But such fears remove the important tool of energy conservation, added Dr. Hakes adds, recalling public service ads from the 1970s encouraging Americans to drive at 50 or 55 miles an hour and keep their thermostats at 68 degrees. The tagline was “Don’t be fuelish.”
Half a century later, the world has “a short and fast-closing chance to secure a livable and sustainable future for all,” scientists wrote in the latest major report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The report, by 270 researchers from 67 countries, warned that climate change is harming the planet faster than humans can adapt.
“Everyone is talking about emissions reductions, but when fossil fuel production is constant, you wonder where these emissions reductions come from,” said Hans-Otto Pörtner, a physiologist and one of the report’s co-chairs.
dr. Pörtner spoke from his home in northern Germany, dressed in a sweater and jacket because his wife had lowered the temperature to save energy. Such measures are “low hanging fruit,” said Dr. Portner.
He said he hoped policymakers would use the Russian invasion as an incentive to accelerate the clean energy transition.
“If we forget about the existential threats of climate change, we’re really in trouble,” said Dr. Portner.
