The international green agenda has been heavily shaken by the new geopolitical reality of the total war provoked by Russia on the European continent. The effects are evident if we look at the UN climate change summits, the so-called COPs. 

The 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference, or Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC (COP), was held last November in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, and was deemed a failure. The prospects of the COP28, to be held in the UAE this year, are not rosier.

At COP27, negotiations were dominated by the issue of the fund that would compensate developing countries for the loss and damage that climate change has brought. Member states agreed to establish such a fund, which is a win for developing countries, but the downside is that there was no agreement on how the finance should be provided and where it should come from.

Also, the COP27 agreement failed to go beyond the 2021 Glasgow climate pact’s promise to “phase down unabated coal power”. The final text also announced no new targets or commitments, threatening the goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C, established in the Paris Agreement in 2015.

“Fossil-fueled war”

Putin has never welcomed the idea of abandoning fossil fuels, as Russia’s economy depends heavily on them. Oil and gas revenues in past years supplied about 40 percent of the federal budget. Now these sales directly finance the war in Ukraine.

Russia used its participation to COP27 to leverage its commitments on reducing carbon emissions in exchange for Western sanctions relief imposed after the invasion of Ukraine.

The Russian delegation sought to show that sanctions interfere with fulfilling climate obligations while advancing its unique approach to addressing the global problem. Without commenting on the war in any way, the Russian representatives lamented the sanctions as an “unfair” restriction on international cooperation in developing low-carbon technologies.

Oil lobbyists and sanctioned oligarchs

Several oligarchs and executives from Russian fossil-fuel-connected companies, such as Gazprom or Tatneft, also appeared at COP27. Some of them were already under Western sanctions. They came to act as lobbyists, defying both the sanctions against them and the world’s attempts to get away from fossil fuels.

Ruslan Edelgeriev, the Russian special presidential envoy on climate issues and a Putin adviser, told reporters that Moscow was committed to “depoliticized cooperation” on climate change. While Moscow doesn’t renounce its current obligations to reducing carbon emissions, it can’t go further until conditions change, he said, referring to Western sanctions relief.

“If it were not for sanctions, restrictions, or other discriminatory approaches, the Russian Federation could have achieved carbon neutrality sooner,” said Edelgeriev. He also stated that EU countries cannot complete their transition to green energy because they have rejected Russian gas.

Russia-backed nuclear power alternative

The Russian business representatives, especially from the state atomic energy agency Rosatom, spoke out together with representatives from the Global South, primarily at panel discussions. Rosatom has long promoted nuclear energy at international green forums as a safe and low-carbon technology. Employing a rhetoric of neocolonialism, the Russian authorities attempted to bring non-Western countries over to their side.

According to Russian climate and anti-war activist Arshak Makichyan, the Russian delegation at COP27 spent two weeks lobbying for nuclear power as a fossil fuel alternative in an attempt to retain its stranglehold on global energy systems.

“Nevertheless, the Russian authorities’ cynical statements ignoring the reasons for sanctions did not convince anyone. Many world leaders mentioned the war and the resulting energy crisis in their speeches”, according to an analysis published by the Ukraine War Environmental Consequences Work Group.

The Russian negotiators were met with lukewarm, if not outright hostile, approaches from international colleagues. An official side event at COP27 was interrupted by a protest by Ukrainian activists, who shouted that the country is “shooting and bombing people” in Ukraine and Russia’s “climate pledges mean nothing” because it “kills climate with the fossil-fuelled war”.

The dangers of industry shutdowns

An analysis published by The Conversation magazine shows that COP27 was overshadowed by Russia’s war against Ukraine, which has strained gas pipeline supplies, prompting many countries to expand domestic fossil fuel reserves or to return to coal burning. The invasion meant oil and gas-producing nations became more influential at COP27, undermining the negotiations. World leaders preoccupied with spiraling energy prices and the escalating cost of living were reluctant to act boldly on fossil fuels. This was reflected in the watered-down text in which the Egyptians slipped in a provision to boost” low-emission and renewable energy”, which is a nod to natural gas – cleaner than oil and coal but still a fossil fuel.” Widespread anxieties about the cost and availability of energy made many governments cautious about expressing a clear intention to phase out all fossil fuels in the resulting agreement”, according to The Conversation.

In October 2022, the month before COP27, gas consumption in the EU fell by a quarter compared with the 2019-21 average. This “lowers energy bills, ends Vladimir Putin’s ability to weaponize his energy resources, reduces emissions, and helps rebalance the energy market,” said executive vice-president Frans Timmermans. But business leaders see it differently, according to Financial Times. Fredrik Persson, president of Business Europe, said that much of the drop came from companies cutting production or closing. He added that EU companies faced a “serious loss of competitiveness” as wholesale gas prices were five to seven times higher in Europe than in Asia and the US.