Guest essay by Eric Worrall

A Ukrainian climate scientist blames Western purchases of Russian fossil fuel for the might of their military onslaught, but she fails to ask why the West became so dependent on Russia.

Unite against climate change – Ukraine scientist

By Victoria Gill
Science correspondent, BBC News

A leading Ukrainian scientist says war is “closing the window of opportunity” for the world to prevent the worst impacts of climate change. 

Dr Svitlana Krakovska, who is a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), spoke to me on Zoom from her apartment in Kyiv.

“It’s amazing how the people of Ukraine united against one enemy,” she said. 

“If we all unite against climate change, we can survive as a civilisation.”

…

She stressed that fossil fuels, and Europe’s reliance on exported oil and gas from Russia, were “funding the war”. 

“The money that’s invested in fossil fuels, they’re using against us,” she said. “Against freedom. Against humanity.”

…

Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-60592587

I cannot express how much I admire the courage of people including Dr Svitlana Krakovska, who have stayed in the Ukraine, to defend their homes from Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s brutal incursion into their country,.

But blaming our dependence on fossil fuel for the might of Russia’s military is only half the story. The reason Europe especially became so dependent on Russian fossil fuel specifically, is green politicians like Joe Biden, Angela Merkel and Boris Johnson have done and are doing everything in their power to wreck Western extractive industries, with fracking and exploration bans, punitive taxes, and onerous environmental processes for drilling new wells and mines.

How did green politicians in the West manage to convince so many voters to support their anti-fossil fuel extraction jihad?

Dr Svitlana Krakovska, in my opinion if you want to know who is really to blame for the might of Russia’s armies, try looking in the mirror. The climate alarmism promoted by yourself and your colleagues gave green politicians like Biden, Merkel and BoJo the voter support, scientific cover and political leverage they needed to wreck Western oil and gas extraction, forcing desperate Western consumers to turn to hostile fossil fuel providers like Russia.