Does war accelerate green energy transitions? Examining the impacts of the Ukraine war on national energy transitions

Abstract

The EU's dependence on Russian fossil fuels had been widely accepted throughout the last century. Associated collaterals such as relying the energy supplies of domestic industries and households on a foreign regime were disregarded. Only the Russian war on Ukraine from 24 June 2022 represents a paradigm shift in existing energy dependencies. Germany particularly excelled in its paradigm shift from being the largest importer of Russian gas and the second-largest importer of oil toward a complete import ban on Russian fuels. At the same time, the biggest European pipeline with Russia, Nordstream 2, was intended to support Germany's ability to cease coal-burning and nuclear energy. Therefore, it represented a decisive step in Germany's ambitious green energy transition. This raises the question of how the war in Ukraine impacted German public policies on energy. Supported by underlying theories on paradigm shifts in political decisions as a reaction to exogenous shocks, the content analysis examines press releases of the German Federal Minister for Climate and Energy and evaluates Germany's approach in dealing with supply shortages from Russia. Thereby, it focuses on the consequences for its green energy transition. In doing so, the underlying thesis substantially contributes to further developing Hall's...