Europe’s Unsolved Energy Puzzle
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How the Quest for Resources Has Shaped the Continent
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine has laid bare some uncomfortable truths about Europe’s energy future. For one thing, it has demolished the presumption in Germany that Russia would be a reliable fossil fuel partner. The war has also blown apart Europe’s claim to moral leadership on climate change. At the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow in the fall of 2021, the European Union unsuccessfully demanded that China and India commit to a timetable for phasing out coal. Now that demand appears almost hypocritical, because countries such as Germany are keeping open coal-fired power stations that were due to close to deal with their present energy woes. In doing so, these leaders have demonstrated that coal is still the primary energy source of last resort for generating electricity.