Russia’s brutal invasion may hasten the West’s clean-energy transition, but its short-term effects on the planet will be damaging.
The problem comes in the short and medium term, and it is a serious one: The timeline we have that might allow us even a 50/50 chance of keeping temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius — the stated goal of the Paris accords and the global community of nations — is insanely short. Any delay basically puts it out of reach. And this will be a delay. Put another way, nobody is going to be building a gas pipeline to Russia again. They’ll look to fulfill those needs with other energy sources. But in the short term they may well be turning to even dirtier sources to bridge the gap.
