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Previously yr, Western Balkan governments have introduced a collection of recent gasoline pipelines, terminals and energy vegetation, supposedly to steer the area away from Russia.
These plans — lots of that are receiving monetary and political help from the EU and US — if applied, will hamper the area’s transition to renewables, whereas aggravating financial and safety dangers, together with these involving Russia.
Western Balkan governments have not discovered a lot from the final yr through which the EU’s dependence on fossil fuels imports, primarily gasoline, grew to become a significant supply of instability, with world repercussions. However they aren’t the one ones.
Whereas it has but to be seen how profitable the EU is in weaning itself off Russian gasoline, its leaders are exporting its errors to a area that in 2021 consumed solely 4 % as a lot gasoline as Germany and isn’t practically as dependent because the EU on it.
EU Fee president Ursula von der Leyen, vitality commissioner Kadri Simson and enlargement commissioner Olivér Várhelyi usually meet with the Azerbaijan regime to advertise elevated gasoline provides to the EU and Western Balkans.
And the European Funding Financial institution and European Financial institution for Reconstruction and Growth look set to finance the Greece-North Macedonia gasoline interconnector, which — regardless of claims of diversification — would really enormously broaden North Macedonia’s gasoline imports.
The Western Balkans’ gasoline consumption is beneath 4 billion cubic metres per yr, largely associated to heating and trade, with Serbia making up round 60 % of it, whereas a big a part of the area — Albania, Montenegro and Kosovo — is presently not even linked to the worldwide gasoline community.
Based on new analysis by International Power Monitor and Bankwatch, the introduced gasoline tasks are value greater than €3.5bn, and embrace the area’s first two LNG import terminals in Montenegro and Albania, and a fleet of recent gas-fired energy vegetation that may dramatically improve the area’s dependency on gasoline for electrical energy.
Gasoline infrastructure would normally must be constructed from scratch, which might be pricey and take years, thus locking within the area for many years to come back. This diverts sources from investing in vitality effectivity and sustainable renewables.
Photo voltaic and wind lagging
The area’s lagging photo voltaic and wind growth thus far exhibits that it isn’t real looking to count on that the international locations will make one other transition from gasoline in direction of renewables by 2050. The depleted budgets of those international locations and the shortage of regulatory and institutional capability will not permit it.
New gasoline demand will improve the Western Balkans’ publicity to risky gasoline costs. Given the extent of vitality poverty and the political sensitivity of excessive utility payments within the area, shoppers won’t be keen or capable of take up excessive costs for gasoline. This may increasingly properly result in stranded belongings.
However even when gasoline is used, it’s seemingly that governments must subsidise it during times of excessive costs, placing further pressure on the international locations’ restricted public budgets. They might even flip in direction of Russia, as Russia is in a position and keen, if it serves its geopolitical pursuits, to supply cheaper gasoline than Azerbaijan or LNG imports.
This all occurs at a time when it’s clear that there’s merely no house for brand spanking new fossil gasoline infrastructure.
The most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Local weather Change (IPCC) report reiterates that there isn’t any room for brand spanking new fossil gas infrastructure globally, because the projected CO2 emissions from current infrastructure, with out further abatement, would take us past 1.5 C temperature improve by the tip of the century.
Based on the IPCC, “fast and deep and, normally, quick greenhouse gasoline emissions reductions in all sectors this decade” are wanted so as to restrict warming to 1.5°C. Gasoline buildout within the Western Balkans will not be appropriate with this aim, nor with the international locations’ commitments to achieve web zero by 2050 as a part of their EU accession course of.
A number of of the proposed pipelines are accompanied by unsupported claims that they’ll provide renewable hydrogen sooner or later, with out offering any proof on potential sources or financial feasibility. The effectivity advantages of direct electrification in heating — moderately than hydrogen use — and the low chance that a lot renewable hydrogen will probably be accessible within the coming a long time, render this declare unconvincing.
As an alternative of funding the creation of largely new gasoline demand within the area, the EU and US could be higher off doubling down on the Western Balkans’ vitality transition.
One of the simplest ways to attain vitality safety within the area, that means the uninterrupted availability of vitality sources at an inexpensive worth, whereas maintaining Russia away from the area, will not be Azeri gasoline, nor LNG or every other gasoline, it’s an energy-efficient economic system based mostly on sustainable types of renewable vitality and the electrification of the heating and transport sectors.
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