would be if the kyiv authorities refused to join nato and essentially maintain neutrality. but with tens of thousands of russian forces still poised near ukraine s borders, like these observed by cnn, there is little sign of that compromise being made. already, the u.s., several of its allies have impose think sanctions. notably germany putting on held to kremlin backed nord stream 2 gas pipeline. the decision to suspend the strategically important projects which would massively boost supplies of russian energy to europe has drawn immediate scorn from moscow. welcome to the brave new world, tweeted a former russian president, and close putin ally. where european will very soon pay thousands of dollars for their gas. a snarky reminder that sanctions can cut both ways. as president biden says, freedom comes at a cost. for the u.s. and its allies, the
we had an incident on wednesday where the russian air force was in the airspace of the swedish island of gotland, the swedish flew up, and there was a bit of a confrontation, and it ended peacefully. but perhaps it was a sign that there were lots of ways of tweaking the tail, as it were, of your neighbours, without actually invading them or using aggression. perhaps the biggest change, though, has been in germany s approach. they have almost kind of abandoned decades of policy over this? it s an astonishing about turn. almost overnight, within days, virtually, we threw away all our sacred cows of political prudence and so forth. we stopped this nord stream 2 gas pipeline, first of all, which was to be our main source for our energy supply from russia, that s now gone. it cost tens of billions to build, it isn t going to happen, it isn t going to go into operation. we are sending military hardware, an unconscionable event in the olden days only a few days before the conflict began, it
to cause net higher emissions. there is even an environmental benefit. u.s. gas leaks less methane than russian gas and u.s. oil production is also less environmentally harmful than russian production. in many places the increase in natural gas would mean countries like germany could use less coal or dirtier fuel in nearly every way. in fact, the best way to cut carbon emissions in the short term with current technologies and at scale is to replace coal with natural gas. all of these measures have down sides, some symbolic, some real, but to govern is to choose and to govern in a crisis is to make hard painful choices. the country that has best understood this is germany, it has suspended its nord stream 2 gas pipeline, announced plans to mr. two new terminals to convert lng into gas and acknowledged that it might have to use more coal and to extend the life of
dramatic reversal in energy policy on the continent, announcing late last month that it would suspend the nord stream 2 gas pipeline from russia and build lng terminals to receive shipments from other countries. the rest of europe needs to follow. undoubtedly some of the effects this have crisis will be bad for the environment. oil production will go up, including in the u.s. even coal use will go up boardoff says. there is no other way to meet global energy demand. as boardoff put it, this conflict is forcing a reckoning with how large the gap is between today s energy reality and tomorrow s climate ambition. global energy policy must incorporate both the ramping up of fossil fuel production in the short term and speeding the transition to renewable energy in the longer term. it may seem hopeless, but remember, governments in crisis have done extraordinary things. after the arab oil embargo, the
Frank-Walter Steinmeier, long an advocate of Western rapprochement with Russia, expressed regret for his earlier stance, saying: "I did not believe Vladimir Putin would embrace his country's complete economic, political and moral ruin for the sake of his imperial madness."