The EU Energy Crisis and a New Geopolitics of Climate Transition

In 2022, the Russian invasion of Ukraine had a profound effect on EU energy and climate policies. The EU redesigned its approach to the geopolitics of energy security as it sought alternatives to Russian supplies with accelerated urgency. It upgraded its commitments to energy transition internally and through external actions too, whilst member states balanced these with the domestic politics of a cost-of-living crisis triggered by the war. The new era of geopolitical power had repercussions for the conceptual contours of EU approaches to energy and climate security, which were elevated to hard security issues. The article reviews the key developments in EU energy and climate policies in 2022 and notes three emerging and inter-related conceptual shifts in these: the securitization of the green transition, a more realpolitik approach to external climate actions and a rebalancing towards state intervention.