By Paul Bledsoe
With Russian troops massing on Ukraine’s border, and President Biden urging Russia’s Vladimir Putin not to invade, the geopolitics of Russian natural gas are growing increasingly intolerable. European gas imports are a mainstay of cash for Putin’s regime, with over one-third of Kremlin funding coming directly from oil and gas revenue, even as Russia increases repression at home, attempts to undermine democratic elections abroad and continues to use its gas as a geopolitical weapon against Europe.
If that weren’t enough, Russia is the world’s largest emitter of methane, a super climate pollutant whose mitigation is now crucial to global climate change efforts. The EU gets more than 25 percent of its total gas and half its gas imports from Russia’s leaky, antiquated gas production system with emissions of methane eight times higher than EU domestic gas. With methane leaks of at least 5 to 7 percent, the EU is addicted to Russian gas that increases warming twice as much as the coal it’s meant to replace.
