Guardian: EU energy strategy must counter Putin's fossil fuel-fed autocracy

The role of climate and energy policy in the 'long game' that will play out between Russia and the west has been overlooked

Vladimir Putin's land grab in Crimea has shocked the west into rethinking security strategy on the continent.

Michael McFaul, former US ambassador to Moscow, has rightly argued in the New York Times that Putin has made a strategic pivot, and has abandoned reform and partnership with the west for a campaign to consolidate autocratic power at home and erect an alternative to western liberal democracy for the nations in its "near abroad".

In the efforts to gauge how far Russia will go and what it means for transatlantic institutions, however, a larger theme is being overlooked.

That is the role of climate and energy policy in the “long game” that will now play out between Russia and the west. Rather than being a choice between democracy and autocracy, the choice is actually one between patronage-based oil-and-gas oligarchies on the one hand, and adaptive and innovative low-carbon economies on the other.  MORE