Campaigning: The Journal of the Joint Forces Staff College 08 November 2022

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Energy Security and the Strategies of Nations, 

Part 2

The following article is a transcript from a presentation made to Joint Forces Staff College faculty and students.

The Editorial Board initially considered publishing the question and answer portion of the presentation, but decided 

that the content held significant value and should be published in its entirety. Campaigning debuted Part 1 in 

September 2022 and Part 3 is forthcoming.

Presented by 1

Theresa Sabonis-Helf

1 The views expressed are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the official policy or position of Joint 

Forces Staff College, National Defense University, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

Energy Security and the 

Strategies of Nations

JFSC/ Na�onal Defense University

April 2022

Theresa Sabonis-Helf

Georgetown University 

School of Foreign Service
Campaigning: The Journal of the Joint Forces Staff College 08 November 2022

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Figure 1. Ukraine's nuclear power plants and Russian actions, 2022. Map upper right from World Nuclear 

Association, found at https://www.world-nuclearnews.org/BlankSiteASPX/media/WNNImported/mainimagelibrary/places/Ukrainemap730411_WNA.jpg?ext=.jpg; 

bottom left graphic Russia Seizes Ukraine Nuclear Plant after Fire, Georgia Today, Zaporizhzhia Fire, found at 

https://georgiatoday.ge/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/thumbs_b_c_6af7db0f8f30b13ff594f2f0bc70cd86.jpg; bottom 

right map, New York Post, What does Russia’s seizure of Ukraine’s largest nuclear power plant mean? Map found 

at https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/russian-control-ukraine-nuclear-plant07.jpg?quality=90&strip=all

In a more down-to-earth, immediate way, let's think about a very recent challenge. Russia early 

on in the war seized and occupied the no longer used facility at Chernobyl, and the largest 

nuclear power plant in Europe at Zaporizhzhya. Russia seized the plants using force, continued 

to occupy them, and has now returned them to Ukrainian control. I want to talk about the fact 

that we have to think about what was really happening here. There were a lot of questions when 

Russia first took these—what were they doing? And I would argue that actually Russia's longer 

term strategic challenge here was that as a major exporter of nuclear energy equipment and 

nuclear energy technology, Russia absolutely could not afford for a nuclear power plant to be 

collateral damage in this ground war. The seizure and occupation of Zaporizhzhya and 

Chernobyl, in my estimation, were an effort to make sure that there would not be collateral 

damage to the facilities. 

Ukraine is home to 15 opera�ng NPPs, 

located at 4 sites (and the nonopera�onal site of Chernobyl). Russian 

forces fought to secure control over 

two facili�es in early 2022: Troops took 

over control of Chernobyl on 25 

February and Zaporizhzhyaon 4 March. 

The la�er facility con�nued to operate 

at the level it did before the a�acks. 

Zaporizhzhyahas been returned to 

Ukrainian control, joining the other 

three that supply the country.
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Russia is notoriously bad at targeting. When we look at the Chechen wars, we see that in the 

prosecution of the wars in Chechnya, Russia actually did more damage to their own energy 

infrastructure through poorly targeted bombings than the Chechens did to Russia. We can see 

this, and I believe we should understand this situation, as Russia trying to make sure that they 

would have the energy assets necessary to govern the territory and keep the lights on if they had 

succeeded in what they thought was going be a rapid conquest of Ukraine. Now the mistakes 

they made at Chernobyl, we can pick up in the Q&A (Part 3). There were clearly some 

substantial mistakes that they made, but I do believe that making sure the facilities themselves 

were not damaged was an important priority in Russian strategic thinking (refer to Figure 1). 

There are many things that change the energy preferences of nations. Russia wanted to make sure 

that collateral damage to a nuclear power plant would not reduce world appetite for nuclearproduced electricity, but if we look across time and we compare 1973 to 2019, we see something 

very curious. What we see here is that the demand for electricity in the world went up more than 

four times between those time periods. But we also see that what we put into our electricity has 

changed since, in some interesting ways, and has remained the same, in some interesting ways. 

Look at coal. Even though world demand went up four times, so the pie got four times bigger, 

coal retained the same size share, and we're only now beginning to talk about how to use less 

coal rather than continually more. Look at natural gas; natural gas used to be a much smaller 

piece of a much smaller pie. It's gotten extremely important due to some of the environmental 

advantages, due to some of the efficiency advantages, and due to our better understanding about 

how to manage and move around natural gas. Look at nuclear. Nuclear at the beginning in 1973, 

the first oil crisis, nuclear was a very small niche technology, and now it's a very stable ten

percent of global supply. And of course, look at non-hydro renewables, which have grown 

enormously. Many things contribute to changing the preferences of states in the way that states 

pursue their energy. Sometimes what changes the preferences has unexpected follow-on 

consequences (refer to Figure 2). 
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Figure 2. What changes the energy preferences of nations? Source: IEA Key World Energy Statistics 2021, p. 30, 

found at https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/52f66a88-0b63-4ad2-94a5-

29d36e864b82/KeyWorldEnergyStatistics2021.pdf

Europe is now in what I would argue is their third major energy transition. The first one was the 

transition from coal to oil in the naval ships of the United Kingdom, and that took place under 

Churchill when he was first Lord Admiral of the Navy. But the second transition took place in 

the late ’70s, early ’80s, and was part of a big dispute between Margaret Thatcher and Ronald 

Reagan. Even though these two characters agreed on a lot of things about the appropriate size of 

government and role of government, they fundamentally disagreed on an important issue. 

Margaret Thatcher was a proponent of importing natural gas to Europe, of shifting the energy 

basis of Europe onto natural gas. To Ronald Reagan this was the worst sort of strategic stupidity. 

Why would you develop a dependence on your adversary? Why would you make a set of choices 

that physically connect you to an adversary? Because Margaret Thatcher's argument really 

carried the day, it's important to review that argument. Her argument was that Europe was 

dependent in a very unbalanced and dangerous way on the Middle East. Diversifying from this 

very high dependence on oil into a mixed dependence on oil and gas would diversify the 

portfolio of risk. Even though there would be Soviet risk, there would be Soviet risk and Middle 

Eastern risk instead of all Middle Eastern risk. In addition, natural gas had some phenomenal 

advantages, and Europe was very densely populated and trying to find ways to preserve air 

quality. There were environmental reasons. 

What changes the energy preferences of 

nations?

World Electricity 1973 World Electricity 2019
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Figure 3. Enduring alliances, Thatcher and Reagan soul mates? Image found at 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c8/Thatcher_-_Reagan_c872-9.jpg/597px-Thatcher_-

_Reagan_c872-9.jpg?20190923014244

But in the end, Europe did what Europe usually does, and the United States did what the United 

States usually does (refer to Figure 4). The United States sanctioned and embargoed the pipeline 

and Europe built it anyway. Interestingly, in an effort to make sure that their dependence on the 

Soviet Union was not too high, Europe also led exploration for new gas, and that led to 

developments in Algeria that led to North Sea gas development. All the way until 2004, Europe 

managed to retain its commitment to become no more than 30 percent reliant on natural gas from 

the Soviet space or from Russia (refer to Figure 5). 
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Figure 4. Enduring alliances, or contentious strategic choices? Source: Foreign Affairs, 1982, Vol. 61, No. 3, pages 

511-540, Andrew Knight, Ronald Reagan’s Watershed Year? found at https://doi.org/10.2307/20041540. Accessed 

23 Jun. 2022.

Well, they can have their damned 

pipeline, but not with American 

equipment, and not with American 

technology! 

(June 18, 1982)
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Figure 5. The scientific community is divided. Source: New Yorker Cartoon Bank. Source: The New Yorker, by 

Mischa Richter, 21 March 1988, found at https://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large-5/the-scientificcommunity-is-divided-some-say-mischa-richter.jpg

What we see here, as we look across time, is that as strategists, we are forced to compare unlike 

risks. It's really complicated and problematic because when you think about it, what we're doing 

here is we're trying to figure out not only how much risk there is, but how we compare 

environmental risk to political risk to technological risk to economic risk. And we find that there 

is no consensus. We're having to continuously readjust (refer to Figure 6). 
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Figure 6. Energy Security Costs & Risks [Importing State]

What we see, and what strategists know, is that costs are what you know you are going to pay, 

risks are what you're going to pay when you're wrong. When we think about how to balance 

economic cost and risk, we see that Lithuania was willing to incur huge cost economically to 

reduce what they perceived as political risk. We see that the Soviet-European pipelines were 

willing to incur a new kind of political risk in an effort to reduce another kind of political risk but 

also in an effort to make some technological change. When we look at what has happened in 

Germany in recent years, we see that Germany was willing to lead the world, which they did for 

many years, in solar power, and was willing to incur a lot of technological cost and risk in order 

to try to capture and maintain leadership in a new and—what they believed—an important 

energy sector. We also see, for example, in the United States, we exempted horizontal drilling 

and fracking from environmental restrictions in an effort to capture a technological lead and shift 

our energy dependency. That was a willingness to incur significant environmental cost and risk. 

States shift these regularly over time and over space trying to get that ideal balance, and that has 

an impact not only on energy security but on broader political thinking and on strategy. When we 

think about that sort of willingness to the United States to really push the envelope on 

technological, and frankly on environmental, risk in order to capture natural gas, it's worth going 

back and asking: Why did we do that? Why would we do that (refer to Figure 7)? 

Energy Security Costs & Risks 

(Importing State)

• Economic Cost/Risk

– Invest in redundancies and infrastructure that may raise the 

cost of energy to your na�on’s consumers (Lithuania FLNG)

• Political Cost/Risk

– Con�nue purchasing from a nearby supplier even if rela�ons 

are problema�c (Soviet-European pipelines)

• Technological Cost/Risk

– Rely on innova�on to capture/maintain leadership in an 

unproven energy sector (Germany solar power)

• Environmental Cost/Risk

– Accept environmental risk in the pursuit of domes�c energy 

developments (US fracking)
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Figure 7. Natural gas world proven reserves and production 2020 (* Excludes gas that is flared or reinjected. 

Source: BP Statistical Review of World Energy July 2021, British Petroleum [at end of 2020] in TCM, pp 34 & 36, 

found at https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/business-sites/en/global/corporate/pdfs/energy-economics/statisticalreview/bp-stats-review-2021-full-report.pdf

Now when we look at the United States, what we see is something rather extraordinary, and that 

is the United States does not have the highest level of proven reserves in the world; as you can 

see here, we're currently number five on the list. You see that we hold almost seven percent of 

the proven reserves in the world, and yet somehow, we're the largest producer in the world now. 

What does that mean for us? Well, if you looked at the reserves to production ratio column, what 

you see is that the United States can only continue to produce natural gas the way we are now, at 

the rate we are now, for fourteen years, unless we continually innovate, continually use new 

technologies, continually find new resources. We do not have enormous amounts of this reserve. 

The reserves to production ratio does not mean that we're going to completely run out of gas in 

fourteen years. It means that the United States has chosen a path where we're committed to 

continually innovating, continually incurring this technological risk, in an effort to produce at the 

rate that we are. That may seem like an odd choice. I want to show you both why we began 

going down this route and what the new challenge is (refer to Figure 8). 

Country Reserves

(TCM)

% of total

2020 world

proven

reserves

Reserves to

Production

Ratio (years)

% of total 2020

world

production*

Russia 37.4 tcm 19.9% 58.6 16.6%

Iran 32.1tcm 17.1% 128.0 6.5%

Qatar 24.7tcm 13.1% 144.0 4.4%

Turkmenistan 13.6tcm 7.2% 230.7 1.5%

USA 12.6tcm 6.7% 13.8 23.7%

Venezuela 6.3 tcm 3.3% 333.9 0.5%

Saudi Arabia 6.0 tcm 3.2% 53.7 2.9%

UAE 5.9 tcm 3.2% 107.1 1.4%

Natural Gas World Proven Reserves and Production 2020
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Figure 8. Natural gas prices ($/million BTU) 2003–2020. Source: Statistical Review of World Energy 2021, p. 41, 

found at https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/business-sites/en/global/corporate/pdfs/energy-economics/statisticalreview/bp-stats-review-2021-full-report.pdf.

What you see if you look at the year 2012 is that at that time, for the same unit of natural gas 

where the United States was paying less than $3, Japan was paying more than $16. Think about 

how huge that is, and if natural gas is an important industrial component to what you're doing, 

that matters hugely. Well, what you're seeing there is that being close to gas has a huge economic 

advantage. Moving gas around costs more than getting it out of the ground. If you are near where 

the gas is, that has huge strategic implications. The United States captures this enormous 

economic advantage. But if you look at that chart going toward the right, what you see is that the 

prices are getting closer and closer together (refer to Figure 9). 

Natural Gas Prices ($/million BTU) 2003 - 2020

Japan Korea Market

Netherlands Index
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Figure 9. Major gas trade movements 2020, Trade flows worldwide (billion cubic meters). Source: Image and data 

from BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2021, p. 33, 42 44, found at 

https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/business-sites/en/global/corporate/pdfs/energy-economics/statisticalreview/bp-stats-review-2021-full-report.pdf and includes data from FGE MENAgas service, HIS.

It used to be that natural gas was purely a regional commodity, so if you were close to it, you 

win. As we move gas more and more into sea lanes and less and less in pipelines, what we're 

seeing is the transformation of the global markets. what we see is more than half the gas in the 

world is now moved in the sea lanes. Thus, a change in price in one place immediately has an 

impact on a change in price elsewhere. The world has reduced the political risk associated with 

overland pipelines where you have long-term contracts, but that's increased the economic risk 

and the economic volatility. In a sense, the whole world has traded some political risk in natural 

gas for heightened economic risk and gas. Let’s look at another way that risk is shifting (refer to 

Major gas trade movements 2020 

Trade flows worldwide (billion cubic metres)

 

 

Total LNG (2010): 302.4 BCM

Total LNG (2012): 324.9 BCM

Total LNG (2013): 326.8 BCM

Total LNG (2014): 333.6 BCM

Total LNG (2015): 337.1 BCM

Total LNG (2016): 358.3 BCM

Total LNG (2017): 393.3 BCM

Total LNG (2018): 430.6 BCM

Total LNG (2019):483.8 BCM

Total LNG (2020): 487.9 BCM

The US exported 61.4 BCMA of LNG in 2020 

(including re-exports). Qatar exported 106.1 BCMA

In 2010, LNG accounted for 40.9% of 

inter-regional gas trade In 2019, LNG 

accounted for 51.9%

World Bank (2012): Pipelines are 

more economical than LNG up to 

distances of 3500 km.
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Figure 10). 

Figure 10. Global greenhouse gas emissions by economic sector. Source: EPA Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions 

2014, https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data.

When we look at the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, what we see is that no matter 

how you count it, at least fifty percent and as much as seventy percent of the greenhouse gases 

emitted in the world are associated with energy. Energy is not the only contributor to greenhouse 

gases and global warming, but there is no way to address global warming unless we incorporate 
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greenhouse gases into our calculus. We know that greenhouse gas emissions are going to change 

the way that we think about energy, and we can see some evidence from the markets that that's 

already happening (refer to Figure 11). 

Figure 11. Crude oil price history. Source: Data from EIA. Log scale/Inflation adjusted. Chart from 

Microtrends.net, found at https://www.macrotrends.net/1369/crude-oil-price-history-chart

Oil has been a problem for a long time in terms of volatility. This shows you how dramatically 

the price of oil changes and this, by the way, is why we prefer not to use it in electricity because 

it's so volatile that it makes it really hard to do that minute-by-minute input into a grid that we 

have to do in order to produce electricity (refer to Figure 12). 

Crude Oil Price History

The extreme price volatility of oil makes it an unattractive input into electricity
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Figure 12. Crude oil price history with price volatility textbox. Source: based on EIA, March 2020 [measuring 

WTI], found at https://www.macrotrends.net/1369/crude-oil-price-history-chart

But even in a world where oil is profoundly volatile, we've seen new, and even scarier, 

volatilities. In 2020, during the global economic shutdown in the month of March, we saw 

something truly extraordinary that this graph (Figure 30) does not capture. We saw that the price 

of oil fluctuated by more than 20 percent in a single day—three times—and more than 10 percent 

in a single day, four times. What we're seeing is that as the future of oil becomes more and more 

uncertain, the volatility, the unpredictability, the craziness of it gets greater and greater, and that 

is reflected in something that you may or may not have noticed that happened not because of 

COVID, but it happened during COVID (refer to Figure 13). 

Crude Oil Price History

The extreme price volatility of oil makes it an unattractive input into electricity

In March 2020, the price of 

oil dropped 24% (March 18) 

and 25% (March 9) in a 

single day, and rose 10% 

(March 10) and 24% 

(March 29) in a single day
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Figure 13. Exxon-Mobil removed from Dow Jones August 2020. Source: Camila Domonoske, NPR, 25 August 2020,

Exxon Mobil Exits: The Dow Drops Its Oldest Member, image found at 

https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2022/06/03/gas-prices-4-700x420.jpg

ExxonMobil is no longer on the Dow Jones. When we look at the Dow Jones, the Dow Jones 

measures the most important American companies, and ExxonMobil was the longest serving 

member of the Dow Jones. It was removed in August 2020, not because of a one-time problem 

with oil prices but because on average, ExxonMobil is a terrible investment. The stock has done 

extremely poorly in the past ten years. The way oil has behaved is completely different than the 

way most stocks behave. That's not just in ExxonMobil, and that's not just in the Dow Jones. The 

Standard and Poor 500, which measures the five hundred most important global companies, has 

also downgraded oil because on average, stocks have increased 130 percent over a twenty-year 

period, whereas oil keeps losing value. What we see is that the future of oil is increasingly 

uncertain. That makes investment really problematic (refer to Figure 14). 

Exxon-Mobil was removed from the Dow Jones 

in August 2020

• Investment shi� from 

“black gold” to “silicon 

valley silver” 

• Exxon-Mobil stock has done 

poorly in the past 10 years –

shares in $104 in June 2014, 

and $42 in August 2020

• Chevron is now the only 

energy stock remaining in 

the Dow Jones

• S&P 500 stock average: 

increase in 130% over the 

past 20 years... Exxon-Mobil 

stock has lost value in that 

�me frame.

• Energy is now only 2.5% of 

the S&P 500 (down from 

10.89% ten years ago)
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Figure 14. Shares of Global Primary Energy 2020 (percentage). Source: BP Statistical Review of World Energy 

2021, p. 12, found at https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/business-sites/en/global/corporate/pdfs/energyeconomics/statistical-review/bp-stats-review-2021-full-report.pdf.

But at the same time, not only are we not yet done with oil, oil is still the most important energy 

commodity. When we look at what goes into light and heat in industry, we see that oil is still 

number one. It's not gone. It's not even number two yet. This creates all sorts of confusing 

economic dislocations in an incredibly important sector (refer to Figure 15). 

Shares of Global Primary Energy 2020

(Percentage)

orld consump�on

oules

Oil is declining as a percentage 

but remains the dominant fuel: 

Approx. 31.2% 

of all energy

Renewables passed nuclear

For the first time in 2020 

oil

coal

gas

hydro

nuclear

renewables
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Figure 15. 2019 World oil consumption: 100 million bbl/day. Source: BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2020 

and IEA December 2020, data found at https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/businesssites/en/global/corporate/pdfs/energy-economics/statistical-review/bp-stats-review-2020-full-report.pdf and 

https://www.iea.org/reports/oil-market-report-december-2020

For years and years, the reason why the United States was pushing the technological envelope is 

because there was confidence that every year the world would want one to two million barrels of 

oil a day more. Everybody, everywhere, was still wanting more (refer to Figure 16). 

2019 World Oil Consumption: 100 million bbl/day

Global increase of >1 mil. bbl/day from 2018 (10 yearaverage of 1.5 Million bbl/day) 

2019 EU Oil Consumption: 12.9 mil. bbl/day (US: 19.4) (China: 14.1)
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Figure 16. 2020 World Oil Consumption: 91.1 million bbl/day, Global decrease of 8.1 mil. bbl/day from 2019. 

Source: BP Statistical Review 2021 and IEA Oil Market Report December 2020 found at 

https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/business-sites/en/global/corporate/pdfs/energy-economics/statisticalreview/bp-stats-review-2021-full-report.pdf and https://www.iea.org/reports/oil-market-report-december-2020. 

Image of COVID-19 found at https://www.fda.gov/files/Coronavirus_3D_illustration_by_CDC_1600x900.png

It wasn't until COVID that we actually saw a downturn in global demand for oil, and everyone 

was uncertain what that COVID downturn would mean. It was very dramatic, but was it durable? 

What should investment look like? What should happen? As we tried to recover from COVID, 

one of the important actors but a very uncertain actor was OPEC Plus. What were we supposed 

to do with OPEC Plus? (refer to Figure 17).

2020 World Oil Consumption: 91.1 million bbl/day Global 

decrease of 8.1 mil. bbl/day from 2019. Global demand in April 2020 

was the lowest it has been since 1995

IEA expects global demand to grow at a reduced annual rate to 2025
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Figure 17. OPEC Plus (OPEC +). Source: OPEC bulletin, found at 

https://www.opec.org/opec_web/static_files_project/media/downloads/publications/OB11_12%202016.pdf.

For many, many years, we were in a world where OPEC was predominantly Arab, but that 

shifted. Now we're in a world starting in which OPEC expanded and brought on twenty-four new 

members and essentially almost all the countries of the world that have a strong state presence in 

oil united together into OPEC Plus (OPEC+). Russia became the number two player in OPEC+, 

the second most important after Saudi Arabia. This changed the dynamic of OPEC, and this was 

a desperate effort on the part of oil-producing states to manage the fact that volatility has gotten 

so crazy in oil that no one knows what investment should look like. They tried to control 

volatility by managing production, but every single time OPEC+ cut back, U.S. production 

surged, bringing the market down again. OPEC+ was not very effective, and they were getting 

very frustrated. They had a rule, which was when the price of oil dropped below $50 a barrel, 

they would meet in emergency session and figure out what to do (refer to Figure 18).

OPEC Plus (OPEC +)

• Also known as the “Vienna 

Group”

• Formalized in Nov 2016 with the 

‘Declara�on of Coopera�on’

• 24-member group

• Includes all 14 OPEC members 

plus: Russia, Kazakhstan, 

Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Brunei, 

Malaysia, Mexico, Oman, South 

Sudan and Sudan

• Only 4 members have significant 

swing capacity: Russia, Saudi 

Arabia, Kuwait and UAE

• OPEC Controls 

35% of global supply

82% of global reserves

• OPEC+ Controls 

55% of global supply 

90% of global reserves

• OPEC + has cut

Produc�on cuts of 5.2 

mil. bbl/day were 

agreed 2016-2019. In 

that �me, shale 

produc�on added 7.7 

mil bbl/day.
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Figure 18. The oil price war. Source: Oil price based on Brent Crude as reported by oilprice.com. Image found at 

https://newlinesinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/GettyImages-1152489863-2.jpg

And so in early March 2020, they met in emergency session to figure out what to do, and the 

emergency session collapsed. Saudi Arabia and Russia could not agree on what to do. Russia 

left the meeting, and Saudi Arabia decided to flood the world market with oil to teach Russia a 

lesson. It just so happened that that was the week before the global economy began shutting 

down due to COVID. That flooded the market, collapsed the market, and created all sorts of 

instabilities and precipitated uncertainty among the major oil-producing states; they didn’t know 

how to move forward. The crisis we're facing today, about the Russia invasion of Ukraine, is 

certainly largely, but it's also about the deep uncertainty in OPEC+ about the future of oil and 

how to manage how that unfolds (refer to Figure 19).

The Oil Price 

War

• 6 March 2020: Russia and 

Saudi Arabia failed to agree on 

cutting production. Saudi 

announced it would raise 

output by 2 mil. bbl/day

• 12 April 2020: OPEC+ 

reconvened and agreed to cuts 

of 9.7 mil. bbl/day starting in 

May.

• McKinsey had expected oil 

price to recover to a $50-$60 

per bbl by 2022 (2024 at latest)

• OPEC+ production cut 

compliance falls to 75% in Jan 

2021, continues to decline as 

prices rise

At the G20 summit in June 2019

Price on 29 Feb 2020: $53.35

Price on 20 April 2020: $16.94 

Price on 25 Oct 2020: $41.40

Price on 12 Jan 2021: $56.53

Price on 14 Sept 2021: $73.35

Price on 4 April 2022: $102.70
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Figure 19. Primary energy: regional consumption pattern 2020 percentage. Source: Statistical Review of World 

Energy 2021, p. 12, found at https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/business-sites/en/global/corporate/pdfs/energyeconomics/statistical-review/bp-stats-review-2021-full-report.pdf.

What we see is that we're now in a world where no part of the world is ready to use less energy,

but what inputs regions of the world want are shifting dramatically. In the Asia-Pacific, coal is 

still king. They're trying to move into the age of oil and gas. Europe, already in an age of gas, is 

trying to move into an age of non-hydro renewables. The Middle East, growing increasingly 

dependent on gas, is trying to export oil. North America is moving for the first time from the age 

of oil into the age of gas. Each of these changes in turn changes supply chains, changes 

dependencies, changes politics, changes the geostrategic implications of various energy sources 

(refer to Figure 20). 

Primary Energy: Regional consumption pattern 2020

Percentage

non-hydro 

renewables

hydro

nuclear

coal

nat. 

gas

oil

North 

America

S & Central

America

Europe CIS Middle 

East

Africa Asia 

Pacific
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Figure 20. United Nations Paris climate agreement 22 April 2016. Source: data found at https://unfccc.int/processand-meetings/the-convention/what-is-the-united-nations-framework-convention-on-climate-change and 

https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement, graphic found at 

https://i0.wp.com/www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/ParisAgreement_Logo_EN_size.png?fit=900%2C408&ssl=1

Of course, we are in an age of climate change, and what we know is that the world is trying to 

keep global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius (refer to Figure 21). 

• UN Framework Convention on Climate Change entered into force 1994

• Conference of the Parties (COP) 3 took place in Kyoto in 1997 and resulted in 

the Kyoto Protocol: entered into force 2005. It was set to expire in 2012 but 

was extended pending a new agreement

COP21 took place in Paris in 2015 and resulted in the Paris 

Accord: entered into force November 2016. The stated goal of 

this treaty is to keep global temperature rise below 2°C

(ideally 1.5 °C). Measurements are mandatory but country 

targets are voluntary. The treaty includes mechanisms for the 

participation of non-state actors.
Campaigning: The Journal of the Joint Forces Staff College 08 November 2022

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Figure 21. COVID-19 and energy/emissions 2020. Source: Spencer Dale, BP Chief Economist, presentation on 12 

July 2021. Source: graphic at https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-ofworld-energy/chief-economist-analysis.html

If we think about what would we have to do in order to do that, what we saw is that during 

COVID-19, global energy demand fell by four and a half percent, oil demand fell by nine

percent, and carbon emissions fell pretty much in the way that we needed them to fall every year 

for a number of years. But, during COVID, what we saw is that the global GDP fell by three and 

a half percent, and the desperate task before us now is how do we get COVID-level reductions in 

emissions without COVID-level impacts on our economies? We don't have really good answers 

for that yet, but we know what we need to do (refer to Figure 22). 

Covid-19 and Energy/Emissions

In 2020:

Global GDP fell by over 3.5%

Global energy demand fell by an 

estimated 4.5%. (Oil fell by 9.3%).

Global carbon emissions from energy 

use fell by 6.3%

Can we achieve similar decreases 

without huge damage to everyday 

lives and livelihoods?
Campaigning: The Journal of the Joint Forces Staff College 08 November 2022

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Figure 22. Net Zero by 2050. Source: “Net Zero by 2050” Report by the International Energy Agency, May 2021. 

Source: https://www.iea.org/reports/net-zero-by-2050

What we need to do, according to the International Energy Agency, which is the agency that 

helps the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) think about energy 

infrastructure, we have to massively deploy existing technology. We need to see far more 

investment now than we're seeing in existing technologies. We need to get on top of these supply 

chain complexities. And we need to begin moving more and more and more energy demand onto 

the grid. Electrifying it so that by 2040, half of our energy that we use is in the form of 

electricity. This is a complex process—a huge challenge. We are only beginning to move toward 

it. And of course, the war has shifted our short-term priorities, although in the end the war may 

hasten the transition away from oil and gas because of the critical role Russia plays with that. 

Net Zero by 2050

From 2021-2030:

• Massive deployment of 

existing tech needed. 

• Annual clean energy 

investment $4 

Trillion/year by 2030 

(more than triple the 

current level)

• Address supply chain 

complexities of next 

generation energy

From 2030-2050:

• Halt conventional car 

sales by 2035

• Electricity approaches 

50% of total energy by 

2040 and will be net zero.

• Phase out all unabated 

coal and oil Thermal 

Power Plants s by 2040

• Carbon capture focus on 

industry (not power)

CO2 from energy and industry is 60% higher than it was in 1992, when the UNFCCC was 

signed. In order to achieve net zero by 2050, the IEA recommends the following: