BRUSSELS: The \u200bdisruption to energy markets caused by the Iran war is an \u201cabject lesson\u201d in the risks of relying on fossil fuels, and underscores the case for governments to wean their economies off oil and gas, the UN climate secretary will tell EU policymakers on Monday.<\/p>\n
While geographically far from the crisis in the Middle East, the European Union has felt its \u200cdisruption through \u200csurging global energy prices. European gas prices \u200bhave \u200cjumped \u2060by \u200b50 percent during the \u2060two-week war. \u201cFossil fuel dependency is ripping away national security and sovereignty, and replacing it with subservience and rising costs,\u201d Simon Stiell, Executive Secretary of the UN climate change arm UNFCCC, will tell EU officials and government ministers at an event in Brussels.<\/p>\n
\u201cEurope is more reliant on fossil fuel imports than almost any \u2060other major economy,\u201d Stiell will say, in \u200cprepared remarks that warned reliance on \u200cfossil fuels was leaving consumers \u201cat the mercy \u200bof geopolitical shocks and \u200cprice volatility.\u201d<\/p>\n
The EU imports more than 90 percent of its \u200coil and 80 percent of its gas. EU leaders are hurriedly drafting emergency measures to shield consumers from the energy price spike, and avoid a repeat of Europe\u2019s 2022 energy crisis, when Russia slashed gas \u200cdeliveries, sending prices to record highs.<\/p>\n
In the longer term, the European Commission says its climate change \u2060strategy to \u2060replace fossil fuels with locally-produced renewable and nuclear energy will secure countries\u2019 energy security, and cut them free from volatile fuel prices.<\/p>\n
But governments including Italy and Hungary are urging Brussels to weaken its climate change policies, to provide short-term cost relief for industries.<\/p>\n
Stiell will warn doing this would be \u201ccompletely delusional\u201d and argue the shift to renewable sources like wind and solar power means cheaper energy, jobs in clean-technology industries, and secure supplies.<\/p>\n
\u201cMeek dependence on fossil fuel imports will leave \u200bEurope forever lurching from crisis \u200bto crisis,\u201d Stiell will say.<\/p>\n
\u201cRenewables turn the tables. Sunlight doesn\u2019t depend on narrow and vulnerable shipping straits.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BRUSSELS: The \u200bdisruption to energy markets caused by the Iran war is an \u201cabject lesson\u201d in the risks of relying on fossil fuels, and underscores the case for governments to wean their economies off oil and gas, the UN climate secretary will tell EU policymakers on Monday. While geographically far from the crisis in the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":95160,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95143"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95161,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95143\/revisions\/95161"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}