Yet, instead of seeing this price spike as an opportunity to hasten the shift away from fossil fuels, governments in advanced economies have tried to reduce the pain by keeping domestic energy prices low, for short-term political reasons. The invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent Western-led sanctions against Russia triggered a sharp increase in fuel prices, when the market was already heating up because of the economic recovery in the United States and Europe. Many have quickly reneged on even the relatively meagre and obviously inadequate climate pledges they made only a few months ago at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow. While this may be understandable, the Ukraine crisis has also exposed the excessively short-term policy orientation of Western governments.
The IPCC warns that some disastrous climate outcomes are now likely to occur not in the distant future, but within the next 15 years, or even the next decade.īut instead of waking up to the threat and responding quickly, policymakers remain focused on Russia's horrific war against Ukraine and its immediate consequences. The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change should terrify policymakers and ordinary people around the world. Despite increasing pressure to cut carbon emissions, all countries are finding coal a hard habit to kick. A photograph of the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) plant in Dadri, India.
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