How Putin made Europe go green faster

One year after Russia invaded Ukraine, analysts think Putin's aggression may have sped up Europe's energy transition. How's that?

Credits:
Reporter: Ajit Niranjan
Video Editor: Nils Reinecke
Supervising editor: Michael Trobridge, Malte Rohwer-Kahlmann

We're destroying our environment at an alarming rate. But it doesn't need to be this way. Our new channel Planet A explores the shift towards an eco-friendly world — and challenges our ideas about what dealing with climate change means. We look at the big and the small: What we can do and how the system needs to change. Every Friday we'll take a truly global look at how to get us out of this mess.

#PlanetA #UkraineWar #EnergyCrisis

Read more:

European Commission data on imports of Russian fuel:

The IEA's guide to avoid gas shortages in 2023:

EMBER's review of European electricity:

The IEEFA's analysis of European LNG:

Chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:50 Eggs & baskets
02:20 Back to coal?
04:27 Renewables push
05:38 Humble heat pumps
07:23 Use less?
09:15 Future
10:47 Conclusion

[DWPlanetA]

What do you think, how well did Europe respond to the energy crisis?

[budawang]

Someone should give Vlad an Environmental Hero Award. While they're at it, he should get an award for his key role in strengthening and enlarging NATO. What a great guy.

[vcwloves]

I'm an American who lived in the Netherlands in 2022. I love winter, so I had no problem lowering the temperature of our house a bit. It was rather comfy walking around in warmups and a sweater all day. The government didn't recommend or mandate it, but it was our own little way of helping, no matter how small.

[alexbroere]

Like Covid you can once again say "never let a good crisis go to waste."
Once again it shows that if needed the industry can speedup and money is available. If only the world would work together to fix the planet.

[thsealord]

Wow. So, not only has Putin given NATO its biggest boost in decades, he's also helped environmentalism. The man is amazing.

[owenwaters]

I think this shows that countries can go green faster they just don't want to





Edit: I didn't say there wouldn't be consequences I said it can be done.

[abcdefgh]

How is switching from nuclear to coal, like Germany, "going green"? 🤔

[prim]

This is incredible news. I really thought the war made the climate crisis worse. The reopening of all the coal plants was big news here in the US, but not green energy.

[rubbersoul]

American watching from the State of Rhode Island in the U.S.-I only discovered DW online since the Russian invasion of Ukraine-but the content is always concise and substantive-giving a more detailed view of what's going on with our European neighbors than I typically find in U.S. news sources-another great job guys!

[janhanchenmichelsen]

We have had A-A heat pumps for almost 20 years. Even with (for most of the time period) low Norwegian electricity prices, this has saved a lot of money. The first pump went almost in balance, but broke down after around five years And the dealer went bankrupt because of him importing nice looking, but badly modified and thus unreliable Chinese AC-units. Lesson learned, we bought a purpose modified Fuijtsu with heating cables for winter use and so on. Paid down after less than five years, still chugging on.

[lorenzoventura]

Italian government just reduced gas taxation and increased electricity taxation. I ask myself how many ENI shares Giorgia Meloni owns to move consumption from electricity to gas after these hard lessons, not to mention the climate.

[a]

Except for five or six days when it was really cold, I haven't used my heat at all. And I'm in Germany. I suspect the best investment for saving energy and cutting energy use isn't going to be more efficient heating devices, but better insulation. My home was built in 2010 and it's rated very high on the energy efficiency and insulation scale. That's why it stays warm in the winter. That it saves me money is a byproduct of that efficiency.

[jameslewis]

The main stumbling block in getting people to switch to reniewable energy sources has (in reality) always been the amount of investment needed in terms of creating an infrastructure based around them. Once that infrastructure is in place and paid for the generation costs become massively lower than in traditional coal, gas and oil based power plants.

[januszwojewoda]

Why is Germany still fighting against nuclear energy and shutting down plants that could easily run for another 10 years?

[hassansyed]

I have installed 5KW solar system at home because I am expecting energy crisis across the globe will increase in the coming years.

[terramater]

One major renewable energy source that Europe started to invest more in was biomass. Subsidies for industry and private households support it, and it sees the bloc burn around 24 million tons of wood pellets each year. But our crew found a problem with it and investigated it: biomass isn't as "green" as people think. Burning wood can actually emit more CO2 than coal. And, even worse, Europe's insatiable demand for wood pellets threatens some of the continent's oldest forests. Our team explored a hidden energy crisis, and it's such an important topic to learn, considering the moment that we're living!

[strollingthroughparadise]

Thank you for showing such a positive attitude to changing what happened into a great step forward into what needs to be done anyway! This is the best way to see that so many things happen that seem to be negative, but are really opportunities to make positive changes.

[kauevampiro]

Clean energy is the better option everywhere

[koenigkorczak]

I mean, the word "krisis" [κρισις] literally translates to "decision". It's the nature of any true crisis that there is an opportunity for improvement to be seized.

[icecreamtruckog]

Insulation, rock wool, fiberglass and other options are expensive to install but will cut heating costs by 50 to 80 percent like they do in Iceland all year long. And do not need a lot of maintenance, in addition makes houses last longer. But a lot of houses lack Insulation.