Energy Geopolitics
Creators: name: Saalbach, Klaus
Publisher: name: Universität Osnabrück
Year: 2023
Subjects: subject: Energy
subject: Geopolitics
subject: Decarbonization
subject: Renewable Energy
subject: 333.7 - Natürliche Ressourcen, Energie und Umwelt
subject: 320 - Politik

description: For energy security and geopolitics, the control of energy reserves and resources, of transportation routes and critical production steps are essential. This working paper provides an introduction into energy geopolitics by analyzing the control of energy reserves and resources, of transportation routes, critical production steps and the actual topics. If the nation states implement their policies without any further additions, changes or developments, oil, coal, and gas will still dominate the global energy production. The Middle East will keep its position as important oil producer, the year 2030 will definitely not be the time ‘after the oil’. Nuclear energy keeps a small, but stable proportion. Renewable energy production will increase from 74 to 116 Exajoules, but will still be a small proportion of the total energy production of 673 Exajoules in 2030. The energy supply can cover the energy demand, i.e., there will be no ‘energy crisis’. This does not exclude temporary supply crises (e.g., the Russian gas restrictions in 2022). Due to decarbonization policies, the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions can be stabilized, but will not decline (there are further sources of CO2 emission as well, such as agriculture). The decarbonization will be mainly done by replacing fossil energy with electricity from other sources. The use of renewable energy for electricity is increasing and will be already close to fossil fuels in 2030. But while fossil fuels (oil, gas, coal) will decrease in the global energy mix, even for 2050 a proportion of 60% is expected. Compared to the presented moderate scenario there are more ambitious alternative scenarios in literature based on the Climate Goals from Paris 2015, where renewables will mostly replace all other forms of energy until 2050, but the states already struggle with the energy transformation and the climate goals. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) noted for example that despite progress, adaptation gaps exist, and will continue to grow at current rates of implementation. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) expects that global warming will reach the 1.5°C level already between 2023 and 2027 with 66% likelihood and not in 2050. The energy transition is not done with the same speed and intensity all over the globe and the production of renewables cannot fill the gaps if fossil fuels would be removed as part of the decarbonization strategy. Due to the size of its population and economy, the leadership of China in many energy sectors could be expected, but its overproportioned control of renewable resource markets and rare earths and critical minerals shows that the turn to renewable and clean energies creates new dependencies and capital transfers for the Western states. Geopolitical topics are the steadily growing influence of China and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization SCO in Central Asia, the European dependency from Russian gas which now requires a massive transformation of energy sources like Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) and the intense competition between United States and China, in particular in the Gulf and MENA region.